Angela Duckworth, Ph.D.

Angela Duckworth, Ph.D. is the founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance scientific insights that help kids thrive. She is the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the faculty co-director at Behavior Change for Good, and faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics. She is also co-host, with Stephen Dubner, of the podcast No Stupid Questions.

A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, Prof. Duckworth has advised the White House, the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs.

Prior to her career in research, Prof. Duckworth founded a summer school for low-income children that was profiled as a Harvard Kennedy School case study and, in 2018, celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. She has also been a McKinsey management consultant and a math and science teacher in the public schools of New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia.

Prof. Duckworth completed her undergraduate degree in Advanced Studies Neurobiology at Harvard, graduating magna cum laude. With the support of a Marshall Scholarship, she completed an M.Sc. with Distinction in Neuroscience from Oxford University. She completed her Ph.D. in Psychology as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

Prof. Duckworth has received numerous awards for her contributions to K-12 education, including a Beyond Z Award from the KIPP Foundation. Her 2013 TED talk has over 26 million views, and her first book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, is a #1 New York Times best seller.