Warren Riess is University of Maine's Research Associate Professor of History and Marine Sciences. During the past thirty-five years his research and teaching have focused on the maritime history and archaeology of the Americas. He is internationally know as director of the archaeological investigation of an 18th-Century British merchantman discovered on Water Street in Manhattan; for his archaeological work on the Revolutionary War Penobscot Expedition, his articles and book on the 17th-century English galleon, Angel Gabriel, and his investigation of the ship found in 2010 at the World Trade Center.
Prof. Riess has published several articles about maritime history and archaeology in popular magazines, such as Sea History and Faces, and many more in professional journals, such as the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, International Journal of Maritime Economic History, the British Museum Encyclopedia of Maritime and Underwater Archaeology, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord, and, with his wife Kathleen, in the Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Culture. His archaeology accomplishments have been the subject of a one-hour special for the Maine Public Broadcasting System and of articles in many newspapers and magazines, such as Archaeology Magazine, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Earlier in Dr. Riess's career he was a curator at The Mariners' Museum and a consulting curator for the Peabody Museum. He currently serves as President of the North American Society for Oceanic History.