This is why I give: Ann Masten
We’re all familiar with stories focused on overcoming adversity. Movies, books, and even LinkedIn posts frequently narrate how an individual beat the odds to win the big game, leave a troubled relationship, or start a business. ICD professor Ann Masten (PhD ‘82) has spent her career studying resilience in children and how we can help them develop in positive ways, even when they’re facing risk. “My work is intervention oriented,” she says. “Resilience comes from fundamental processes and supportive relationships.”
Masten became interested in resilience research when she met Norman Garmezy, a professor of clinical psychology at the U of M, while she was working at the National Institutes of Health after college. He encouraged her to join his groundbreaking study of resilience as a graduate student. “This was a golden era for psychology as well as child development research at Minnesota,” she says. “My fellow students as well as my professors were remarkable scholars who have had a major impact on research and practice.”
Masten was hired as an assistant professor in ICD, allowing her to continue her longitudinal study of resilience with Garmezy and to help establish the interdisciplinary developmental psychopathology and clinical science program. Almost four decades and multiple profess sional honors later, Masten is planning to fully retire in May 2025.
A prestigious recognition of her work provided Masten with the opportunity to support the next generation, just as she was supported as a faculty member. Last year, she won the $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize for her concept of resilience as “ordinary magic,” and donated the money to establish the Masten Award in Developmental Resilience Science.
She says, “I was inspired to make this gift because I know how difficult it can be for doctoral students to find summer funding for dedicated research time. Working at ICD has provided me with many wonderful opportunities for research, mentoring students, community collaborations, and meeting scholars around the world. While my contributions to developmental resilience science have been very rewarding, influencing the next generation of scholars and professionals is the most important lasting legacy of being a professor.”
—ANN DINGMAN