Donald G. Shomette, a former staff member of the Library of Congress, is a writer, lecturer, and renowned underwater archeologist. A graduate of Pratt Institute, Shomette also earned an honorary doctorate from the University of Baltimore, where he is known as the “Father of Marine Archeology in Maryland.” He is the author of several books on maritime history, including Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay, Lost Towns of Tidewater Maryland, Pirates on the Chesapeake, Tidewater Time Capsule, and Shipwrecks on the Chesapeake.
Shomette was coprincipal investigator for the Patuxent River Submerged Cultural Resources Survey, principal investigator for the Mallows Bay Project, and the moving force in the underwater exploration of the New Jersey and the early settlement of Kent Island. He has directed and participated in underwater archeological projects throughout the United States and Europe for more than three decades.

He has worked extensively with the National Geographic Society, directing or consulting on eight expeditions. Shomette is credited with excavating and evaluating the oldest Euro-American small-craft wreck in North America, conducting the first systematic robotics underwater archaeological survey in history, using ground-penetrating radar for the first time in underwater archaeological investigation, and making the first marine archaeological survey of an entire riverine system in the United States.

Shomette is a member of the North American Society for Oceanic History, the Ancient and Honorable Mechanical Company of Baltimore, and the Maryland Historical Society.