Professor Willingham is described as putting the funk back in functional brain imaging and the psycho in psychometrics. Daniel T. Willingham (born 1961) is a psychologist at the University of Virginia, where he is a professor in the Department of Psychology. Willingham's research focuses on the application of findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience to K–12 education.

He writes the “Ask the Cognitive Scientist” column for American Educator magazine, and is the author of Why Don't Students Like School?, When Can You Trust the Experts?, Raising Kids Who Read and The Reading Mind (forthcoming). His writing on education has appeared in fifteen languages.

In 2017 he was appointed by President Obama to serve as a Member of the National Board for Education Sciences.

 Willingham is known as a proponent of the use of scientific knowledge in classroom teaching and education policy. He has advocated for teaching students scientifically proven study habits, and for a greater focus on the importance of knowledge in driving reading comprehension.