Oceanography professor reflects on accomplishments
URI’s own Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic 36 years ago, describes himself as a “wanderer.” PHOTO CREDIT: Contributed by nautiluslive.org
In his new memoir “Into the Deep,” Robert Ballard recalls the memory of the first thing his mother said to him after discovering the RMS Titanic in 1985.
“Your dad, sister and I have been watching,” she said. “You’ve been on all the networks, and the phone has been ringing with friends and relatives calling us. But it’s too bad. Now they are only going to remember you for that rusty old boat.”
“It’s my cross to bear,” Ballard said about being asked about his discovery of the famous wreck 36 years later.
Ballard has been working at the University of Rhode Island since 2002 in the Graduate School of Oceanography.
While he is best known for finding one of the most famous sunken ships in history, Ballard has done so much more in his career. He was born in Wichita, Kansas and said that he’s always described himself as a wanderer.
“It’s where all oceanographers come from,” Ballard joked about his home state.
Even though he was born in a land-locked state, he also grew up in many different parts of California including Los Angeles, the Mojave Desert and Pacific Beach.
While he aimed to wander through all terrains, he said he believes the ocean had the greatest impact on him due to its vastness and inaccessibility.
“When I was a little kid I loved just doing walkabouts,” Ballard said. “And I just loved going where no one has been, and when you look at our planet, 72 percent of it is oceans — the vast majority of it. So it’s that wanderlust exploring of it.”
Ballard received a bachelor’s in chemistry and geology and minors in physics and math at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He attended the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Hawaii for one year followed by graduate school in marine geology at the University of Southern California for another year before receiving his Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics from URI’s GSO, where he now teaches.
Apart from the Titanic, Ballard has found a collection of other sunken ships. Some of these include his finding in 1989 of the battleship Bismark, his finding of the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier in 1998, and his finding of President John F. Kennedy’s PT-109 ship in 2002.
One thing just as important to him as his own exploration is his passion for educating others. In 2008, Ballard founded the Ocean Exploration Trust, an educational outreach program aimed to encourage students and new discoveries in the fields of geology, biology, maritime history, archaeology and chemistry. Ballard explained the importance of education because of how unique the fields surrounding ocean exploration are.
“It’s going where we’ve never been,” Ballard said. “So we don’t know what we’re going to find. There’s a whole cross-section of possibilities, and so I needed the Inner Space.”
The Inner Space is an international hub in URI’s GSO that provides members of the community with live discovery footage. Currently, that footage is coming from Ballard’s ship The Nautilus, named after the submarine in one of Ballard’s favorite childhood films, Jules Verne’s “Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
“He is an idea person, a visionary for the exploration of our home planet, and a great scientist,” Paula Bontempi, dean of URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography, said. “I first heard his name decades ago as the discoverer of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and his scientific vision grew from there. He spends his time exploring and mapping the seafloor with dedicated colleagues, searching the unknown depths and aspects of our oceans and water bodies, and educating the public and next generation of explorers on his findings. He is a unique individual, boundless in his energy and ideas.”
Currently, The Nautilus is out mapping the 200 nautical miles that the United States owns from the perimeters of all its territories for a 10-month expedition Ballard will join them for next year.