Leigh A. Stearns

Leigh A. Stearns is a professor in the Department of Earth & Environmental Science, where her research focuses on understanding how glaciers and climate interact over a variety of timescales. She earned her PhD from the University of Maine, her MS from The Ohio State University, and her BA from Carleton College. Before joining Penn in 2024, she spent fifteen years on the faculty at the University of Kansas and served as a faculty fellow with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency from 2022-25. Her research uses satellite remote sensing, field observations, and numerical modeling to understand glacier dynamics, iceberg calving, and ice-ocean interactions, with three decades of near-continuous fieldwork in either Antarctica or Greenland. She has authored more than 75 peer-reviewed publications and led or co-led over $20 million in research funding from NSF, NASA, ONR, NOAA, and private foundations, including current projects on sea ice and iceberg remote sensing, glacier flow sensitivity, and machine learning applications for glacier dynamics.

Stearns’s contributions have been recognized with a Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellowship, an NSF CAREER Award, the University of Kansas Scholarly Achievement Award, and selection as an Ivy Plus Provost Leadership Fellow and Endowed Chair at Penn. Beyond her research, she is deeply engaged in community building and mentorship in polar science. Dr. Stearns currently co-leads: a leadership training program for climate scientists, the ISMIP7 Data Working Group, and the Polar Remote Sensing Working Group for the DoD’s ICE-PPR program. She has advised numerous graduate students and postdocs who have gone on to careers in academia, industry, and government.