James P. Delgado

JAMES P. DELGADO has led or participated in shipwreck expeditions around the world. His undersea explorations around the world include RMS Titanic, the discovery of Carpathia, the ship that rescued Titanic's survivors, the notorious “ghost ship” Mary Celeste, USS Arizona, the sunken fleet of atomic-bombed warships at Bikini Atoll, the 1846 wreck of the United States naval brig Somers, whose tragic story inspired Herman Melville's Billy Budd, and Sub Marine Explorer, a US Civil War-era find, and the world’s oldest known deep-diving submarine. Dr Delgado is the Director of Maritime Heritage, Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, for NOAA. He previously served as President and CEO of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and Director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Delgado was the head of the US government's maritime preservation program and was the maritime historian for the US National Park Service. He also hosted the National Geographic International Television series The Sea Hunters, along with best-selling author Clive Cussler. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Explorers' Club, Delgado is the author or editor of nearly 33 books and numerous articles, including Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada and Nuclear Dawn: The Atomic Bomb from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War, plus two international best-sellers Lost Warships: An Archaeological Tour of War at Sea and Across the Top of the World: The Quest for the Northwest Passage. Other books include Gold Rush Port: The Maritime Archaeology of San Francisco’s Waterfront; Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks; The British Museum Encyclopaedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology; Ghost Fleet: The Sunken Ships of Bikini Atoll; Pearl Harbor Recalled: New Images from the Day of Infamy; Great American Ships; To California by Sea: A Maritime History of the Gold Rush and three books for children, Wrecks of American Warships, Native American Shipwrecks, and Shipwrecks of the Westward Movement. Delgado now lives in Washington, DC.