American oceanographer and archaeologist

Robert Ballard has participated in over 100 deep-sea expeditions during his career. Ballard is perhaps most well known for leading the 1985 French-American expedition that discovered the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. However, Ballard has made many great contributions to the fields of oceanography, marine geology, and underwater archaeology. He is a pioneer in the use of underwater submersibles in the location and survey of deep-water subjects.

Ballard was born in Wichita, Kansas, but his family soon moved to San Diego, California. He developed a lifelong love of the ocean as a child. When he was a teenager, he traded studying creatures in tidal pools for SCUBA lessons. Ballard decided to pursue ocean research as a career when he entered college. He attended the University of California, earning dual undergraduate degrees in geology and chemistry in 1965. He trained dolphins for...