Carol Ann Tomlinson is William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia's School of Education and Human Development, where she served as Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy and Co-Director of the University's Institutes on Academic Diversity. She spent 21 years in public education, teaching students in high school, preschool, and middle school and administering programs for struggling and advanced learners. She was Virginia's Teacher of the Year in 1974. In 2022, Tomlinson was ranked #12 in the Education Week Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings of the 200 "university-based academics who are contributing most substantially to public debates about schools and schooling," and as the #4 voice in Curriculum & Instruction.

Carol has authored several books for ASCD, including How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms, The Differentiated Classroom, and (with Caroline Cunningham Eidson) Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum, Grades 5–9. She consulted on and authored facilitator's guides for ASCD video staff development sets and developed ASCD's Professional Inquiry Kit on Differentiated Instruction.