Ruth Taylor MEng Ship Science

Hi, I'm Ruth Taylor and I studied MEng Ship Science within Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton.

I’ve always been interested in submarines and the craft that go beneath the surface or the sea rather than on top of it. When I heard we know more about the surface of the moon than the bottom of the ocean, I knew what I wanted to do for a career.

Ruth Taylor is enthusiastic about Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAVs). The 21 year old is midway through her Masters of Engineering (MEng) degree in Ship Science, a challenging degree programme that involves designing and testing a wide range of seagoing craft. Her latest project was to draw up plans for a ferry to cope with the crossing of the turbulent North Atlantic between the Shetland Islands and Fair Isle.

Ruth has also worked on the development of an underwater glider that makes its way through the oceans collecting scientific data as it goes. “The project involved trialling ideas and using computer simulations to see if they would work, involving lots of physics and maths,” she says.

She is heading off to the USA to spend the semester and summer at two of the world’s leading research institutes. She will study at the Webb Institute in New York, a naval architecture college, before heading to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts where she plans to work with the deep diving submersible Alvin which can take human beings to the ocean floor.