URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Winter_2015_Melissa-McCarthy

Maggie Craig (’13)

passion for the Ocean by Chris Barrett ’08

“You have so much support here to conduct new research and discover new breakthroughs,” she says. Since arriving in Rhode Island, Navatek has expanded its research capabilities with the opening of a new, 20,000-square-foot office. Outfitted with a low-speed wind tunnel and workshop, the office was a major investment for the company. Based in Hawaii, Navatek is looking to further scale up its Ocean State presence. The research concepts in naval architecture, especially hydrodynamics, are directly applicable to many other areas, including renewable energy. Fine heads a small group designing devices for wind turbine blades to improve their efficiency. The concept promises to lower the cost of renewable energy and make wind turbines more attractive energy sources. Separately, Fine and URI’s Associate Dean of Oceanography David Smith, have discussed studying low-temperature plasma reactions as a way to decontaminate water. The research could be leveraged to clean ballast water, which is one of the biggest carriers of invasive species. “Research is a snowball effect that just keeps growing,” Fine says. Navatek principals Dr. Neal Fine and Dr. David Kring, top row from left, and URI graduates from top row to bottom, left to right: Chris O’Reilly, James Doyle, Lauren Schambach, Maggie Craig, Mike Martin, Matt Murphy, and Amanda Costa.

As an ocean engineer at Navatek, ocean engineering alumna Maggie Craig (’13) is designing next-generation ships. Maggie Craig grew up sailing off the Massachusetts coast. As a child, her love of the ocean was just a hobby. These days the ocean engineering alumna is pursuing research that will have an impact on sailors around the world. As an ocean engineer at Navatek in South Kingstown, RI, Craig is part of a research team seeking ways to improve ship design. Her research focus, modeling the impact of waves on hull bending, is so new and specialized that few people in the world study the field. For Craig, that rarity makes her work all that more exciting. “There’s always something new going on,” she says. “We try and find solutions that haven’t been done.” The Narragansett, RI, resident finds herself drawing heavily from her engineering courses at the University of Rhode Island. The complex nature of waves means she must combine the education she received in hydrodynamics, fluids, calculus, computer programming and more. During college, Craig also gained firsthand experience on how ship motions affect onboard operations. On board oceanography Professor Robert Ballard’s research ship Nautilus , she piloted a remotely operated underwater vehicle. Craig says she appreciates that her software—being designed as open-source and available to researchers around the world—holds bigger implications than the homework assignments she delivered as a student.

“You have to get the answer right,” she says. “There is no close enough.”

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