Dr. Angela Duckworth is the co-founder, chief scientist, and board member of Character Lab, a nonprofit with a mission to advance scientific insights that help children thrive. She is also the Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the faculty co-director of the Penn-Wharton Behavior Change For Good Initiative, and the faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics.

A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, Dr. Duckworth has advised the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. Before her career in research, Dr. Duckworth founded a summer school for underserved children that was profiled as a Harvard Kennedy School case study. She has also been a McKinsey management consultant and math and science teacher in New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia public schools. 

Dr. Duckworth completed her undergraduate degree in Advanced Studies Neurobiology at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude. With the support of a Marshall Scholarship, she completed an MSc 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.

Dr. Duckworth’s TED Talk is among the most viewed of all time. Her first book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” is a No.1 New York Times bestseller. She is also a co-host, with Stephen Dubner, of the podcast “No Stupid Questions.”