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 (’13) is pursuing research that will affect sailors around the world.

An ocean engineer at Navatek in South Kingstown, RI, Craig is part of a research team seeking ways to improve ship design. Her research modeling the impact of waves on hull bending is so new and specialized that few people in the world study it. For Craig, it makes it 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. The complex nature of waves means she must combine the education she received in hydrodynamics, fluids, calculus, computer programming and more. During college, she also gained firsthand experience of how ship motions affect onboard operations. Aboard 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.”