Alexandra Techet
American mechanical and marine engineer
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Alexandra Hughes Techet is an American mechanical and marine engineer whose work involves experimental and image-based studies of hydrodynamics. She is a professor of mechanical and ocean engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology department of mechanical engineering.[1]
Education and career
Techet grew up as a sailor and diver in coastal North Carolina.[2]
She studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, graduating in 1995. During her studies, she held the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship in 1995, a program that funds promising Stem doctoral candidates in area to national security, which includes ocean engineering.[citation needed] She then studied oceanographic engineering through a joint graduate program between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, earning a master's degree in 1998 and completing her Ph.D. in 2001.[3]
Her research aims to address the long standing hydrodynamic problems that are being faced by the ocean science and engineering community and by the United States Navy[4]
After postdoctoral research at Princeton, she returned to MIT as Doherty Assistant Professor of Ocean Utilization in the department of ocean engineering.[3] In 2005 she became an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, as part of a broader merger of MIT's ocean engineering and mechanical engineering departments.[2] She was promoted to full professor in 2019.[5]
Techet is a director of the EHL which is known as Experimental hydrodynamics Laboratory at MIT.[6]
Contributions
Techet's research contributions include a study of the ability of archerfish to jump out of water in search of prey,[7][8] and high-speed video capture of sneezes.[9]
During the COVID-19 lockdown, she has also been active in providing home gardening advice to the MIT community through the MIT Office of Sustainability.[10]
Recognition
Techet was named a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2018.[11]
Alexandra was a recipient of the 2004 ONR Young Investigator Award.[12]
She was featured on a cover of Journal of Fluid Mechanic[13]