In 1997, a century and a quarter after The University of Vermont had admitted its first two women students, the trustees elected Dr. Judith A. Ramaley as UVM’s twenty-fourth and first woman president.

Judith A. Ramaley served as president and professor of biology at Portland State University. She held faculty and administrative positions at Indiana University, the University of Nebraska, University of Nebraska Medical Center, University of Albany, a university center in the State University of New York, and the University of Kansas-Lawrence. She graduated from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in zoology and received her Ph.D. in anatomy from the University of California–Los Angeles. Upon completion of her doctoral studies, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University. She was an American Council on Education Fellow at the University of Nebraska Medical Center at Omaha during 1978–79.

In 1989 Dr. Ramaley served as the chair of the Academic Affairs Council of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC) and as chair of the Commission on Women in Higher Education of the American Council on Education. She also served as convener of the Chief Operating Officers group of NASULGC. She served as chair of the Division II Subcommittee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Presidents Commission and as a member of the Joint Policy Board of the NCAA (1994-96) and as chair of the BioAdvisory Board of the Division of Biological Sciences of the National Science Foundation (1994-96). She served as a member of the National Advisory Council for School-to-Work Opportunities and as chair of the Education Reform Subcommittee. She also served as a member of the Kellogg Commission for the Future of State and Land Grant Universities and was a member of Campus Compact.

Judith A. Ramaley assumed her duties as president of the University of Vermont on July 1, 1997 and was formally inaugurated on October 17, 1997. Dr. Ramaley was president of the University of Vermont (UVM) and professor of biology from 1997 to 2001. From 2001-2004, Dr. Ramaley was Assistant Director, Education and Human Resources Directorate (EHR) at The National Science Foundation. 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.

Ramaley served as the 14th president of Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota from 2005-2012.