Dr. Robert Ballard is among the most accomplished and well known of the world’s deep-sea explorers, and he is best known for his historic discoveries of hydrothermal vents, the sunken R.M.S. Titanic, the German battleship Bismarck, and numerous other contemporary and ancient shipwrecks around the world. He has had a long career, doing more than 150 deep-sea expeditions using the latest exploration technology.
As a child, he had a fascination with tidal pools and marine life, which led him to study marine geology. He attended the University of California, Santa Barbara where he joined the U.S. Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). After two years of service, he requested to transfer to the navy, where his knowledge of marine geology would be more useful. However, Robert Ballard always felt that he was different. He didn’t know he was dyslexic until his daughter was diagnosed, and that’s when he dove deeper into discovering himself as well. Ballard was already in his 70s when he found out he was dyslexic. He followed in his brother’s footsteps as a child, and it was very challenging. However, he slowly realized his own strengths and was able to build his own “swiss army knife” of skills.
Dr. Robert Ballard says his dyslexia helped him locate the Titanic, as he says his dyslexia allows him to think differently. During the second expedition to the Titanic, their equipment failed as “[their] sonar went out. [Their] nav system went out. The pilot is saying ‘Bob, we’re lost. I don’t know where we are,’” he said. “We have nothing, but the window — and it’s black. [Ballard] said, ‘Keep going.’ ” When they got to the bottom, Ballard said, he closed his eyes and pictured where they were and pointed to the Titanic’s location, and sure enough, they were able to locate it. “Everyone needs to understand that dyslexics aren’t stupid, they’re just a different kind of human being. They see the world in a very different way,” Dr. Ballard says.