Dr. Judith A. Ramaley (pronounced Rah may’ lee) is Assistant Director, Education and Human Resources Directorate (EHR), The National Science Foundation. She also holds a presidential professorship in biomedical sciences at the University of Maine-Orono and is a Fellow of the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy. The EHR Directorate is responsible for the health and continued vitality of the Nation’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and for providing leadership in the effort to improve education in these fields. The Directorate manages an annual budget of over $900 million. Prior to joining NSF, Dr. Ramaley was President and professor of biology at The University of Vermont (UVM) from July 1, 1997 to June 30, 2001. Before coming to UVM, she was President and professor of biology at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon for seven years.

Dr. Ramaley has a special interest in higher-education reform and has played a significant role in designing regional alliances to promote educational cooperation. She also has contributed to a national exploration of the changing nature of work and the workforce and of the role of higher education in the school-to-work agenda. She also plays a national role in the exploration of civic responsibility and the role of higher education in promoting good citizenship.

Under her leadership, The University of Vermont became a member of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities that explored the role of research universities in the 21st century. The University has also established new partnerships in the state that support educational reform, economic and community development, and opportunities for Vermonters across the state. The most significant of these partnerships is the Vermont Public Education Partnership (VPEP) an alliance of the Vermont Department of Education, the University of Vermont and the Vermont State Colleges to promote preK-20 collaboration throughout the state. In Vermont, Dr. Ramaley was a Director of the Vermont Business Roundtable, a member of the Human Resources Investment Council (HRIC), a member of the Vermont Commission on Higher Education Funding, a member of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors, a member of the Vermont Quality Council Board of Advisors and Co-Chair of the Vermont Campus Compact.

At the national level, Dr. Ramaley recently served as a member of the board of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U;) and as a member of the National School-to-Work Advisory Board and is currently a member of the presidential advisory panel for the Association of Governing Boards (AGB), Chair of the Board of Campus Compact, chair of the subcommittee on College Drinking of the Advisory Council of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (National Institute of Health), and a trustee of Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio. She also is chair of the Greater Expectations Panel, a group developed by AAC&U; as a multi-year initiative to define the aims of a 21st century undergraduate education and to identify strategies for accomplishing these aims.

Dr. Ramaley received her bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College in 1963 and conducted her graduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned a doctorate in 1966. She served for two years as a post-doctorate fellow at Indiana University, she was an American Council on Education fellow at the University of Nebraska Medical Center at Omaha, where she served as associate dean for research and development. The next year, she joined the University of Nebraska’s central administration as assistant vice president for academic affairs. In 1982, Ramaley became the chief academic officer at the State University of New York at Albany. She also served as executive vice president for academic affairs for two years and as acting president for one semester at SUNY-Albany. Ramaley was the executive vice chancellor at the University of Kansas from 1987 to 1990.

Dr. Ramaley has two sons, Alan and Andrew, a daughter-in-law Ziba, four grandsons, Adam, Zachary, Nathaniel and Matthew, and two granddaughters, Zarintaj (Sarah) and Allison.