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Dr. Robert Ballard

Best known for his 1985 discovery of the Titanic, Robert D. Ballard has succeeded in tracking down numerous other significant shipwrecks, including the German battleship Bismarck, the lost fleet of Guadalcanal, the U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown (sunk in the World War II Battle of Midway), and most recently John F. Kennedy's boat, PT-109. In addition to being a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence, Ballard is president of the Institute for Exploration in Mystic, Connecticut. Throughout his career Ballard has conducted more than a hundred deep-sea expeditions, using both manned and unmanned vehicles. A 1977 expedition he led in the Galápagos Rift found hydrothermal vents in the seafloor, along with their exotic ecosystems, a major scientific discovery. Ballard grew up in San Diego wanting to be Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Ballard has a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics from the University of Rhode Island, where he is currently a full-time faculty member. He spent 30 years at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he helped develop manned submersibles and remotely operated vehicles for marine research. He went on to develop telecommunications technology to create "telepresence" for his JASON Project, which allows hundreds of thousands of... Next

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