Valerie Babb is presently Professor of English at the University of Georgia. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, her B.A. at Queens College, The City University of New York. She has been a professor at Georgetown University and is a faculty member of the Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College.

Her fields of expertise are African American literature and culture, and American literature and culture, with particular interests in constructions and performances of race and gender. Her most recent publication is Whiteness Visible: The Meaning of Whiteness in American Literature and Culture. Other works include Black Georgetown Rembered, described as "the history behind the Oprah Book Club selection River, Cross My Heart," and Ernest Gaines. She is also editor of the Langston Hughes Review.