The character arc of Amy Cuddy
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 23 July 1972 in Robesonia, Pennsylvania. Between then and now sit a traumatic brain injury in her undergraduate years, a Colorado degree in 1998, a Princeton master's in 2003 and doctorate in 2005, posts at Rutgers and Kellogg, Harvard Business School from 2008, a TED talk in June 2012, Presence in 2015 and her departure from Harvard in 2017. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Amy Cuddy?
She finished the degree years behind everybody.
She was an undergraduate when she sustained a traumatic brain injury. It interrupted her studies, and she finished her psychology degree at the University of Colorado Boulder in 1998, magna cum laude, years behind the people she had started with. That is the fact the rest of the line should be read against.
She studied at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from 1998 to 2000, took a master's at Princeton in 2003 and a doctorate in social psychology there in 2005. She was an assistant professor at Rutgers from 2005, at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern from 2006, and joined Harvard Business School in 2008, where she became an associate professor.
In June 2012 she gave a TED talk called Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, which became one of the most watched talks TED has ever published. Presence followed in December 2015. Then the science was tested: parts of the power posing findings failed to replicate, and in 2016 her co-author Dana Carney publicly withdrew support for them. The argument that followed was conducted in public and at length. She left her tenure track position at Harvard in the spring of 2017. This page records all of that and settles none of it, and notes the plain fact that the underlying idea, that how you hold yourself affects how you feel, has kept a large audience regardless.
The moments
Amy Cuddy's timeline.
The 1990s
A head injury
Setback, and it changed everything. It interrupted the degree she was taking, and everything on this line is measured from it.
Give up the degree, or finish
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: finish it anyway, taken, or stop there. A Princeton doctorate followed in 2005 and a Harvard faculty post in 2008.
The degree, finished
Milestone, and it changed everything. Finished years behind the people she started with, and with honours.
The 2000s
A Princeton master's
Milestone, and it changed her direction. From a degree finished late to a graduate place at Princeton.
A doctorate at Princeton
Milestone, and it changed everything. Seven years after the undergraduate degree, a doctorate.
Rutgers, then Kellogg
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Two posts in three years, climbing quickly.
Harvard Business School
Milestone, and it changed everything. A faculty post at Harvard, sixteen years after an injury stopped her first degree.
The 2010s
The TED talk
Milestone, and it changed everything. One of the most watched talks TED has ever published.
Presence
Milestone, and it changed everything. The talk, worked out at book length.
The findings were tested
Setback, and it changed everything. Tested hard, in public. That is what is supposed to happen to findings, and it is not a pleasant year.
She left Harvard
Setback, and it changed everything. Out of the tenure track, in the year after the argument.
The line reaches today still adding to itself, which is why it is drawn now rather than at the end. What it shows is two hard things at once: a person who finished what an injury had interrupted, and a researcher whose findings were tested hard in public, which is what is supposed to happen to findings.
What she wrote
Books by Amy Cuddy
- 2015
Presence
Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges. The book form of the talk, published in December 2015.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
Hers lost years to an injury and got the degree anyway, late. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Amy Cuddy: frequently asked questions
What people ask about her line.
What is Amy Cuddy's character arc?
What is Amy Cuddy's TED talk about?
Did Amy Cuddy's power posing research replicate?
Did Amy Cuddy have a brain injury?
What is Presence by Amy Cuddy?
Where did Amy Cuddy teach?
Where did Amy Cuddy study?
Where does this timeline of Amy Cuddy's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with her.
Sources
- Amy Cuddy, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- TED Global, Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, June 2012.
- Publisher records for Presence, and the published replication work on power posing.