Rate My Professor Joan Ramage

Joan Ramage, Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lehigh University, serves as Faculty Director of the Lehigh ADVANCE Center since April 2022. She holds a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from Cornell University (2001), where her dissertation focused on satellite remote sensing of daily, seasonal, and annual changes on Southeast Alaskan glaciers; an M.S. in Geosciences from The Pennsylvania State University (1995), with a thesis on Early Pleistocene Glacial Lake Lesley; and a B.A. in Geology, cum laude, from Carleton College (1993), including an honors thesis on petrographic analysis of Urartian vessel sherds. Prior to Lehigh, where she joined as Assistant Professor in 2004 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011, she was Clare Boothe Luce Faculty Chair for Women in Science and Assistant Professor at Creighton University (2002-2004) and Visiting Assistant Professor at Union College (2000-2002). She also directed the South Mountain College program from 2012 to 2015.

Her research centers on microwave remote sensing of the cryosphere, applying satellite data from sensors like SSMI, SSMIS, and AMSR to measure snow water equivalent, detect melt timing, and analyze glacier variations and hydrology in high-latitude and mountainous regions. Notable publications include Boueshagh et al., "Revealing causes of a surprising correlation: snow water equivalent and spatial statistics from Calibrated Enhanced-Resolution Brightness Temperatures (CETB) using interpretable machine learning and SHAP analysis" (Frontiers in Remote Sensing, 2025); Ramage et al., "Snowmelt Onset and Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) Spring Migration" (Remote Sensing, 2024); Cunnick et al., "Mapping Fractional Vegetation Coverage Across Wetland Classes of Sub-Arctic Peatlands Using Combined Partial Least Squares Regression and Multiple Endmember Spectral Unmixing" (Remote Sensing, 2023); Willis et al., "Massive destabilization of an Arctic ice cap" (Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2018); and Semmens and Ramage, "Melt patterns and dynamics in Alaska and Patagonia derived from passive microwave brightness temperatures" (Remote Sensing, 2014). Funded by NASA, NSF, National Geographic, and the US Army, her projects explore snowmelt-caribou migration links, subarctic wetland flora, and snow properties. An FAA-certified remote pilot since 2019, she integrates UAS into education and serves on the New Hope Eagle Fire Company UAS Search and Rescue Team. In leadership, she was elected Chair of the Universities Space Research Association's Council of Institutions in 2024, after serving as Vice Chair (2022) and on various committees; she is on the Eastern Snow Conference leadership team and contributes to local watershed programs.