Presenters
Keynote Presenter
Deborah Loewenberg Ball
Deborah Loewenberg Ball
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 of
practice that are broadly used to make practice visible and to study the work of teaching. Ball served as
president of the American Educational Research Association from 2017 to 2018 and was a member of
the National Science Board from 2013 to 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