Angela Duckworth, Ph.D.

Angela Duckworth, Ph.D. (FAN ’12, ’16) is the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, faculty co-director of the Penn-Wharton Behavior Change for Good Initiative, and founding faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics. She is also co-host of the podcast No Stupid Questions.

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

Prior to her career in research, Duckworth founded a summer school for underserved children that was profiled as a Harvard Kennedy School case study and, in 2018, celebrated its 25th anniversary. She has also been a McKinsey management consultant and a math and science teacher at public schools in New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. She co-founded Character Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing scientific insights that help children thrive.

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.

Duckworth’s TED talk is among the most-viewed of all time. Her book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance is a #1 New York Times best seller.