The Aspen Institute

Featuring Angela Duckworth, author of “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” and founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit with a mission to advance scientific insights that help children thrive, in conversation with Aspen Institute President and CEO Dan Porterfield. Duckworth will discuss her landmark research on why some people succeed and others fail—and why talent is hardly a guarantor of success.

Virtual event

You can purchase her book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” here.

One of “The Hottest Spring Nonfiction Books”
—The Wall Street Journal

One of “The Year’s Best Life Hacks”
—Glamour

“Angela Duckworth [is] the psychologist who has made ‘grit’ the reigning buzzword in education-policy circles…Duckworth’s ideas about the cultivation of tenacity have clearly changed some lives for the better…In this book, Duckworth, whose TED talk has been viewed more than eight million times, brings her lessons to the reading public.”
—Judith Shulevitz, The New York Times Book Review

Angela Duckworth is the founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance scientific insights that help children thrive. She is also 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 faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics. A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, Angela has advised the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. Prior to her career in research, Angela 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 in the public schools of New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Angela completed her undergraduate degree in Advanced Studies Neurobiology at Harvard, 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 PhD in Psychology as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. Angela’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. She is also co-host, with Stephen Dubner, of the podcast No Stupid Questions.

Dan Portfield, Ph.D., is president and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He previously served for seven years as president of Franklin & Marshall College. Earlier in his career, he was senior vice president for strategic development and an English professor at his alma mater, Georgetown University, and a senior public affairs official in the US Department of Health and Human Services. Recognized as a visionary leader and advocate for expanding educational opportunity and improving the human condition, Dr. Porterfield was named a White House Champion of Change in 2016. He was awarded a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities from The City University of New York Graduate Center, where he earned his PhD.