Shanna Combley 

Shanna Combley is Program Manager for the NASA Earth Action Energy and Infrastructure program and the Mission Engagement program within the Earth Science Division at Headquarters in Washington, D.C. She oversees NASA’s efforts to provide actionable data and information to support decision-making related to energy production, efficiency, and management, power systems planning, and resilient and sustainable infrastructure. 

Ms. Combley manages projects related to Earth system prediction applications, stakeholder decision support tools, and mission engagement. These include the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center (SPoRT), Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER), Risk Analysis and Solutions Innovators (RASI), and Weather Analysis and Diagnostic Evaluations (WADE). She has led interagency and US participation in international initiatives helping bridge scientific innovation with actionable services and stakeholder engagement. She also serves as Program Applications Lead for NASA missions such as TROPICS, PREFIRE, and Libera. 

Ms. Combley also represents NASA on interagency collaborations. These include co-chairing the International Affairs Working Group for U.S. Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) and contributing to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). 

A meteorologist by training, Ms. Combley spent more than 15 years at NOAA. There, she was a Physical Scientist with the National Weather Service International Affairs Office, the principal advisor to the US representative to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on matters related to weather research and services, and polar activities. She was co-chair of a WMO’s Regional Association IV (RA-IV) Expert team and US focal point for the Global Atmosphere Watch. She supported WMO’s Integrated Global Observing Systems WIGOS project, leading its integration in RA-IV. Ms. Combley also worked in NOAA’s Office of Program Planning and Integration as a Senior Program Analyst and NOAA Research’s Deputy Program Manager for the U.S. Weather Research Program. While serving as the program analyst for NOAA Research’s Observing Systems portfolio, she helped to initiate the Quantitative Observing System Assessment Program. 

Ms. Combley also conducted detail assignments at the Department of Energy, Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory, and at the National Weather Service’s GOES-R Readiness Project. Ms. Combley is an alumna of NOAA’s prestigious Leadership Competencies Development Program. 

Ms. Combley earned a Master’s in Systems Engineering from the University of Maryland and a Master’s in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University. She received a Bachelor’s from Iowa State University in Meteorology with a minor in Mathematics.