George Fletcher Bass is recognized as one of the early practitioners of underwater archaeology. He was born on December 9, 1932 in Columbia, South Carolina. President George W. Bush commended Bass during the National Medal of Science Awards in 2001 for "pioneering ocean technology and creating a new branch of scholarship, nautical archaeology, thereby providing new knowledge of the histories of economics, technology, and literacy." George F. Bass is currently the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A & M University.