[1][2] In 1971, Swank and her husband moved to Ankara, Turkey, to join the faculty of the Middle East Technical University as assistant professors.

There she met Hakkı Boran Ögelman, a high-energy astrophysics researcher and head of the physics department at that time who had been involved in the gamma-ray astronomy group at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

[4] Swank was appointed principal investigator for NASA's Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Explorer (GEMS) project.

[6] Throughout her career at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Swank focused her research on observing and analyzing X-ray emissions from black holes and neutron stars.

[10] While participating in a summer research program at the University of Maryland, she met Lowell James Swank, another physicist.