From Cairo to NASA: the journey of engineer Tahani Amer

NEW YORK (MNTV) — Tahani Amer’s path from the outskirts of Cairo to a senior leadership role at NASA is a story of education and persistence opening doors in science and engineering.

An Egyptian aerospace engineer, Amer is an executive in the Earth Science Division of NASA Headquarters’ Science Mission Directorate, where she has helped oversee major missions studying Earth’s climate and environment. 

She grew up near Cairo, where her father encouraged her interest in engineering. 

She married at 17 and later moved to the U.S. with her two children, arriving without speaking English. Despite the language barrier and family demands, she pursued higher education and excelled in mathematics and engineering.

Amer earned a mechanical-engineering degree from Old Dominion University, interning with NASA and working on computational fluid dynamics before graduate studies in aerospace engineering.

She returned to NASA to work on technologies measuring aircraft drag in wind tunnels, and later helped lead Earth-science missions including Surface Water and Ocean Topography, CLARREO, and GeoCarb.

Amer has made public engagement and inclusion central to her work, receiving NASA’s 2014 Public Service Award for encouraging people from underrepresented communities to pursue science; in 2022, the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations honored her with its Award for Science. 

A Muslim woman and immigrant who built a career at a leading scientific institution, she has advocated for greater representation of women in engineering — a reminder, her supporters say, that institutions benefit when talented people from different backgrounds are given the chance to lead.