Hyman Bass profiles the work and career of Deborah Loewenberg Ball for the American Mathematical Society

Writing from the perspective of a colleague, friend, and collaborator, Hyman Bass has contributed a profile of Deborah Loewenberg Ball to the American Mathematical Society’s series ‘Notices,’ which celebrates the work and careers of accomplished women in mathematics.

As Bass writes, “Deborah Loewenberg Ball is an educator—a teacher, a teacher of teachers, and, in particular, a teacher of mathematics. And she is a well-recognized and honored leader, scholar, and practitioner in each of these domains. However, her profile differs from those of other women featured in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society.”

From her educational background in the humanities, and her study of languages including French, Spanish, and German, through her early career as an elementary school teacher in Lansing, Bass illuminates Ball’s decades-long journey into learning and teaching mathematics as well as the study of mathematics education.

“Deborah made mathematical knowledge for teaching a rigorous research question, grounded in a close empirical study of the work of teaching. The work of her research group on MKT made this into what some have called an area of applied mathematics—that is to say, a complex domain of human practice that makes substantial specialized use of mathematics. It revealed novel kinds of mathematical knowing, thinking, and doing that are essential for teaching mathematics, yet had not previously been clearly identified or measured.”