Dr. Angela Thompson says “Twenty years ago I committed myself to the inspiring and hard work of equity in mathematics education and I have not wavered: all of my publications, research, conference presentations, and classroom materials I use and design are about, for, and with Latino and English learners. Yet, it is doubtful a person can be effective in equity work in isolation”. she drew heavily on the knowledge and experience from when she was a Research Fellow for the Center for Mathematics Education for Latinos (CEMELA), a National Science Foundation Center for Teaching and Learning. She was a high school mathematics teacher in Houston, Texas where almost all of her students were bilingual Spanish/English speakers, and she taught for three years at Chinese Culture University in Taipei, Taiwan as a professor of English. Both of these positions inform her experience as a teacher of mathematics and have shown her the importance of attending to language issues in all academic content areas.

Her primary interest is in the intersection of language, culture, and mathematics in a classroom. Furthermore, she is particularly interested in providing resources and best practices for underserved populations of K-16 students and students who repeat mathematics courses. Her research includes preservice and inservice professional development of the above, and activism in social justice and equity in mathematics education