Adam Gamoran is now the President of the William T. Grant Foundation. He was previously the John D. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies and director of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on inequality in education and school reform. Among his recent books are the edited volume, Standards-Based Reform and the Poverty Gap: Lessons for No Child Left Behind (Brookings Institution Press, 2007), which demonstrated that even the best ideas in recent federal legislation have been implemented too weakly and inconsistently to meet their aims. Current studies include three large-scale randomized trials intended to assess the impact of programs to advance student learning and address inequities. Gamoran is an elected member of the National Academy of Education, and he has served on a variety of panels for the National Research Council (NRC), including the Board on Comparative International Studies of Education and the Board on Science Education. He now chairs the NRC's Committee on the Evaluation Framework for Successful K-12 STEM Education, which is identifying indicators to monitor progress towards recommendations proposed in the 2011 NRC report on Successful K-12 STEM Education, prepared by a previous NRC committee that he also chaired. From 2007-2011, he chaired the congressionally-mandated Independent Advisory Panel of the National Assessment of Career and Technical Education for the U.S. Department of Education. In 2010, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Board for Education Sciences, and he was re-appointed in 2012.

Gamoran received an A.B. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, an A.M. in Social Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Education, all from the University of Chicago in 1979, 1979, and 1984 respectively.