Chair and Professor, Mathematics Education
Eva Thanheiser is an award-winning mathematics educator who helps the public and future teachers rethink what math is and what it can do.
Her work explores how mathematics can be a tool for making sense of the world, and for helping students build confidence, community and a sense of purpose in the classroom.
Thanheiser is co-editor of Building Community to Center Equity and Justice in Mathematics Teacher Education (AMTE Professional Book Series), and co-author of Middle School Mathematics Lessons to Explore, Understand and Respond to Social Injustice as well as Powerful Mathematicians Who Changed the World (grades K–5).
Thanheiser leads the NSF-funded project Connecting Elementary Mathematics Teaching to Real-World Issues, where she collaborates with teachers to develop lessons that utilize meaningful data from students’ own lives and communities to build mathematical understanding. In these classrooms, students graph their birthdays, measure personal milestones and analyze local trends, transforming math into a practice of inquiry, reflection and connection.
A former classroom teacher and co-host of the Mathematics Teacher Educator Podcast, Thanheiser brings research, experience and care to conversations about how to teach math in ways that are rigorous, relevant and human.
Topics Eva Thanheiser can speak on:
- Reimagining what mathematics is, and why that matters for kids today
- How math helps students make sense of their world and their identities
- What happens when students “see themselves” in the math they’re doing
- How teachers use real-world data (like birthdays!) to build math understanding
- The role of belonging and community in effective math instruction
- How future teachers are being prepared to teach math in ways that are inclusive, rigorous and joyful