Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is noted for his work in underwater archaeology (maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks) and marine geology. He is best known by the general public for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew.

Ballard discovered hydrothermal vents, where life goes on powered by nutrient chemicals emitted by the vents rather than the sunlight that drives most life on Earth; he said "finding hydrothermal vents beats the hell out of finding the Titanic", and his mother commented "It's too bad you found that rusty old boat... they're only going to remember you for finding [it]". Ballard also established the JASON Project, and leads ocean exploration on the research vessel E/V Nautilus.

Early life and education

Robert Duane Ballard was born on June 30, 1942^: 192 in Wichita, Kansas. He had an older brother, Richard, and a younger sister, Nancy Ann. When Ballard was two years old, his family moved to southern California, where his father worked as a flight test engineer.^: 15 He has attributed his early interest in underwater exploration to watching the 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, an adaptation of Jules Verne's 1870 novel.^: 19–20 While he was a high school student, his father connected him with oceanographers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and he participated in several short research expeditions. ^: 21–24 Ballard enrolled at University of California, Santa Barbara, and joined the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps.^: 27–30

Beginning in 1962, Ballard worked part-time with Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation, where his father was the chief engineer of North American's Minuteman missile program.