Mission Makers: Tahani Amer, NASA Program Executive for the SWOT Water-Tracking Mission

Tahani Amer oversees several Earth science missions for NASA, including the international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite, a mission led by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES). SWOT ]will make the first global survey of nearly all the water on Earth’s surface. Amer grew up in Egypt and was inspired by her father, who worked on dams on the Nile River and supported her career in science. She earned multiple degrees in the U.S. and went to work at NASA's Langley Research Center, eventually rising to become a program executive at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The SWOT mission is a collaboration between NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. SWOT is expected to launch in December 2022.