Lorna Swain

Lorna Mary Swain (22 March 1891 – 8 May 1936) was a British mathematician and college lecturer, known for being one of few female mathematicians to contribute their talents to the war effort in World War I, and for being one of few early female lecturers at University of Cambridge.

Education After attending South Hampstead High School in London, Swain was awarded a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge in 1910. Following her graduation three years later with a bachelor's degree (First Class Honours) in mathematics, she was to take a position as assistant lecturer at Newnham College after a year's hiatus for research in Göttingen, Germany in 1914.

Career Her plans to begin research in Göttingen, Germany in 1914 were scuttled by the outbreak of the First World War. With research in Germany untenable, Swain's specialization in fluid dynamics took her instead to Manchester where she began work alongside Horace Lamb with whom she co-published her first academic article. When she returned to Newnham after a year, as expected, the war temporarily focused her fluid dynamics research on the problem of propeller vibration in aircraft, a considerable problem for aircraft used in the First World War. As June Barrow-Green points out, Swain's work during this time, though it derailed her from planned postgraduate work in Germany, was not only practically useful, but also notable. According to Catherine Goldstein, Swain was "...one of the few women to have her name attached to an Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Report at that time." The resulting research was written up with colleague H.A. Webb in a Report of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. In 1923 after returning to Newnham, she would publish, with Arthur Berry, "On the Steady Motion of a Cylinder through Infinite Viscous Fluid" in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. She eventually get the opportunity to complete the planned research in Göttingen on sabbatical in 1928–1929. From this later period of research she produced work "On the Turbulent Wake Behind a Body of Revolution", also published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in November 1929.

Death Swain died after a longstanding illness on , at Derby House, a nursing home in Parson Street, Hendon, in the Borough of Barnet. The funeral service was held on 13May 1936 at Golders Green Crematorium.