Ellen Skinner, Ph.D., Professor of Human Development in the Psychology Department at Portland State University (PSU), is an internationally recognized expert on the development of motivational resilience and coping during childhood and adolescence. She received her Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University in 1981; and was tenured at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education in Berlin, Germany, and the Department of Psychology and College of Human Development and Education at University of Rochester, before joining Portland State in 1992.
Professor Skinner, with her late husband Thomas Kindermann (also a long-time PSU Psychology professor), led their research team in collaboration with elementary, middle, and high schools to carry out grant-funded longitudinal research projects. Their work focuses on the role of close relationships with parents, teachers, and peers and intrinsically interesting schoolwork in helping students develop strong academic identities, lasting engagement, and tools for constructive coping. She and her collaborators have published widely, including six books, 20 measures, and over 150 articles and book chapters, which have been cited more than 50,000 times.
A dedicated teacher and advisor, Professor Skinner has mentored more than three dozen master’s and doctoral students, many of whom she now counts as collaborators. As lead teacher for the department’s large undergraduate Human Development class, Professor Skinner created a teaching/learning community organized around the course, which co-developed a free textbook. She has taught thousands of PSU undergraduates and received the John Eliot Allen Outstanding Teaching Award in 2005. Professor Skinner has also served in departmental leadership roles, including as Chair and Associate Chair from 2007 to 2020.
Professor Skinner’s scholarship has been recognized with numerous awards, most recently the Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Behavioural Development Theory and Research (2024) from the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development; and the Publisher’s Choice Award (2025) for a co-edited volume on the development of coping.
The Psychology Department at Portland State has been the academic home for Professor Skinner and her husband for over 30 years, and she retires this June with deep gratitude and fierce pride in the department, the institution, its faculty, staff, and students.