Unconventional Paths: Sneaky submarines and super surgeries

As a mechanical engineering graduate student, Alison Marsden studied how to make submarines more stealthy. Moving through the ocean, submarines make sounds that can reveal their location. While earning her PhD at Stanford University in the early 2000s, Marsden conducted U.S. Navy-funded research that used sophisticated computer modeling to optimize the shape of the submarines' hydrofoils, which work like airplane wings, generating lift and stabilizing the submarine underwater. Her aim: to minimize telltale churning sounds and enable the vessels to cruise subsurface, undetected. Marsden has always loved the science of fluid mechanics and she enjoyed the technical aspects of her submarine research, but she knew national defense work would not sustain her interest long-term.