Best known for his discovery of the R.M.S. Titanic in 1985, Robert Ballard is one of the most accomplished deep-sea explorers having conducted more than 120 deep sea missions discovering the site of wrecks such as the Bismark, Lusitania, the site of the Battle of Guadalcanal, and the USS Yorktown. Ballard is the president of the Institute for Exploration, scientist emeritus from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and director of the Center for Ocean Exploration at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. He spent five months last year exploring the Black Sea, Aegean Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. Ballard holds 16 honorary doctoral degrees from universities in England and the Eastern United States.