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==