Tim Shank and Nereus

Tim Shank, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute biologist, was co-chief scientist of an expedition in May 2009 to send the Nereus, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The Nereus was the first vessel to reach the bottom of the trench, which is 36,201 feet below the surface, since 1998. But no human has been that deep since 1960, when Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard took the Navy bathyscaphe Trieste there.