BRIDGEPORT, Pa. — Princeton University women’s water polo alumna Dr. Alexandra Techet is currently a Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering and Director of the Experimental Hydrodynamics Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
A researcher in large-scale experimental hydrodynamics, breaking waves, wave/structure interactions, biomimetic underwater vehicle propulsion, fish and snake-like swimming and maneuvering, vortex induced vibrations (VIV) and flow visualization, the former Tiger was born in November 1972 in Southampton, New York, but spent most of her youth in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she went to Ravenscroft School through eighth grade.
She attended Phillips Academy (Andover) in Andover, Mass., for high school, and while there she began playing water polo, at first on the boy’s team and eventually on one of the first all-girls team in New England. Techet graduated Andover in 1991 and went on to Princeton to study in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. At Princeton, Techet was a captain of the women’s water polo team prior to graduating in 1995 with a Bachelors Degree in Engineering.
She continued playing while in graduate school on the MIT women’s club for four years. Techet continued to play on the Metro Boston Water Polo Masters Team and was active as a referee.
In May 2001, she completed a Ph.D. from the Department of Ocean Engineering at MIT in the Joint Program with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She received a Scientiae Magister (Master of Science) degree in Oceanographic Engineering from the Joint Program in 1998. During the 2001-2002 academic year, Techet returned to Princeton as a post-doc with Professor Lex Smits in the Mechanical and Aerospace department where she investigated the use of piezoelectric flapping membranes for energy harvesting from ocean currents.
She then returned to MIT as an Assistant Professor in Ocean Engineering. In 2002, Techet was awarded the Doherty Professorship in Ocean Utilization to look at Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) based distributed flow sensors for underwater vehicle control. She was awarded the ONR Young Investigators Award in 2004 for the experimental study of chaotic, near-surface hydrodynamics of high speed surface piercing vessels.
Techet specializes in experimental unsteady marine hydrodynamics at high Reynolds numbers and teaches several courses related to hydrodynamics and marine vehicle design, including a section of Biological and Medical Engineering at Cambridge University. Her research is in the area of experimental marine hydrodynamics with applications to advanced surface ship, offshore platform and underwater vehicle design.
Her core research looks at unsteady hydrodynamics at high Reynolds numbers (>105), such as fluid-structure interactions, boundary layer control through fish-like swimming motion, live fish swimming and maneuvering and chaotic free-surface flows about structures such as high speed surface piercing vessels. Research into such complex hydrodynamic phenomena has direct implications on the design of vessels and structures operating in the ocean, as well as other areas of fluid dynamics such as boundary layers and wakes, internal flows and geological and environmental flows.
In order to advance research in these areas, Techet is interested in the development of non-invasive flow measurement and visualization methods, including two- and three-dimensional particle image velocimetry (PIV), fluid shear stress measurement techniques and qualitative flow imaging along with how the use of these advanced techniques coupled closely with theoretical and numerical modeling can yield improved insight into designing oceangoing vehicles and platforms.
