Deborah Willis (b. 1948, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American photographer, curator, historian of photography, author, and educator whose pioneering scholarship has transformed the study of African American photography. By 1996, Willis had established herself as one of the foremost authorities on the history and representation of Black photographers in the United States, combining academic research, curatorial practice, and artistic production to recover and preserve photographic histories that had long been overlooked within mainstream art history.