Judith Rodin
Judith Rodin (born Judith Seitz, 1944) is an American research psychologist, academic administrator, and philanthropist known for pioneering work in behavioral medicine and health psychology, as well as for transformative leadership in higher education and global philanthropy.[1][2] Rodin earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 1971, after which she held faculty positions at New York University and Yale University, rising to full professor at Yale in 1979 and serving as its provost from 1992 to 1994.[1][3] In 1994, she became the seventh president of the University of Pennsylvania and the first woman to permanently lead an Ivy League institution, a position she held until 2004; during her tenure, she launched initiatives like the West Philadelphia Initiative to bolster the local economy, established the Penn Medicine health system, and oversaw the university's ascent to fourth place in U.S. News & World Report rankings, alongside faculty achievements including two Nobel Prizes in sciences.[3][1] Her administration also navigated contentious debates over free speech, divestment campaigns related to Israel, and responses to campus incidents involving racial tensions.[4][5] From 2005 to 2017, Rodin served as the first female president of the Rockefeller Foundation, where she advanced programs in resilience-building and impact investing, authoring influential works such as The Resilience Dividend and Making Money Moral based on over 200 scholarly articles and 15 books in her career.[6][1] As president emerita of Penn and through board roles including chair of Prodigy Finance, she continues to influence discussions on education, urban development, and philanthropic strategy.[1][7]