Deborah Loewenberg Ball is the William H. Payne Collegiate Professor of education at the University of Michigan, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and the director of TeachingWorks. She taught elementary school for more than 15 years, and continues to teach mathematics to elementary students every summer. Ball studies the practice of teaching as the active work of building relationships with children to support their learning and flourishing. She uses elementary mathematics as a critical context for investigating the challenges of helping children develop agency and understanding, and of leveraging the power of teaching to disrupt racism, marginalization, and inequity. Ball is an expert on teacher education, and her current work centers on ways to improve the quality of beginning teaching, particularly for children of color and low-income children.

Ball has authored or co-authored more than 150 publications and has lectured and made numerous major presentations around the world. She has also developed distinctive collections of video records ofpractice that are broadly used to make practice visible and to study the work of teaching. Ball is the immediate past president of the American Educational Research Association and was a member of the National Science Board from 2013 through 2018. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education, and is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society and the American Educational Research Association.