Judith Rodin is a pioneer, innovator, change‐maker and global thought‐leader. For more than two decades, Dr. Rodin led and transformed two global institutions: The Rockefeller Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania.
A groundbreaking executive throughout her career, Dr. Rodin was the first woman named to permanently lead an Ivy League Institution and was the first woman to serve as The Rockefeller Foundation’s president.
A pioneer of the behavioral medicine and health psychology movements, Dr. Rodin was trained as a research psychologist. After completing her Ph.D. work at Columbia University in 1970, she joined the faculty of New York University as an assistant professor of Psychology.
It’s necessary but not sufficient to learn and then work. You must learn from the work and learn while you work.
She was promoted to associate professor in 1975, named a full professor of Psychology in 1979, and added the title of professor of medicine and psychiatry in the School of Medicine, in 1985. Prior to her appointment as Yale’s provost in 1992, she served two years as chair of the department of psychology and one year as dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, forging a leadership path for women at Yale and nationally.
At Yale, Dr. Rodin earned an international reputation as one of the founders of the fields of behavioral medicine and health psychology. Her work focused on the intersection of psychological, behavioral and physiological variables and, with her colleagues at Yale, she studied obesity, eating disorders, stress and coping, and aging. Dr. Rodin was the Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology as well as Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at Yale, a unique set of joint appointments that reflected her groundbreaking impact on promoting interdisciplinary work at Yale and around the world. From 1983 to 1993, she chaired an international research network studying health-promoting and health-damaging behavior for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Dr. Rodin’s research also contributed to the understanding of aging by demonstrating that elderly people who are given control over their environment are more active, healthier, and live longer than those who are consigned to helplessness. In recognition of her scientific achievements, Dr. Rodin served on President Clinton’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and was elected to several leading academic societies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Rodin’s leadership ushered The Rockefeller Foundation into a new era of strategic philanthropy that emphasized partnerships with business, government, and the philanthropic community to address and solve for the complex challenges of the 21st century. Rodin championed two whole new fields that are now pervasive: resilience and impact investing. At Penn, Dr. Rodin presided over an unprecedented decade of growth and progress that transformed the institution, its campus, and the community, taking the university from sixteenth to fourth in U.S. News and World Report national rankings. The University also engineered a comprehensive, internationally acclaimed neighborhood revitalization program in West Philadelphia.
Dr. Rodin has served as a board member of many leading public companies, including Citigroup, Comcast and Aetna, as well as numerous venture-backed startups, and numerous non‐profits including New World Symphony, The Brookings Institution, and Carnegie Hall. She is a sought-after speaker for influential global forums including The World Economic Forum, The United Nations General Assembly, and the Vatican Global Forum. Dr. Rodin has authored more than 200 academic articles and chapters, and has written or co‐written 15 books, including The Power of Impact Investing: Putting Markets to Work for Profit and Global Good and The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong. Her most recent book, published by Wharton School Press, is entitled Making Money Moral: How a New Wave of Visionaries is Linking Purpose and Profit.
