Rusbult made many important, highly cited contributions. Her work played a major role in shaping an emerging specialization—the operation of social-psychological principles in close relationships—that is now a significant stream of social psychology. Her influential and exceptionally generative investment model of commitment explains how committed partners maintain and promote their relationships by transforming personal motives to account for the necessity of coordinating and getting along with partners. Perhaps more influential than her individual contributions was that Rusbult changed thinking about relationships. She believed that the preeminent phenomena of relationships—and for that matter, of human psychology—were not about personalities or individual minds as much as about the way that partners respond to the fact of their interdependence. The enormous impact of Rusbult’s theory, research, and teaching was recognized by major grants and awards. She conducted research in the same way as she lived life: with dignity, enthusiasm, great compassion for others, and an abiding commitment to truth.