Dr. Laurie Santos

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LAURIE R. SANTOS is Professor of Psychology and Head of Silliman College at Yale University. Santos is an expert in the field of comparative cognition, the scientific study of what makes the human mind special.  

At Yale, Santos teaches "Psychology and the Good Life,” the most popular course in Yale’s history with a current enrollment of almost 1200 students, nearly a quarter of all undergraduates. 

Santos's scientific research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Forbes, The New Yorker, New Scientist, NPR, and Smithsonian Magazine.

She is the recipient of Harvard University's George W. Goethals Award for Teaching Excellence, Yale University's Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Junior Faculty, and Yale University's Lex Hixon '63 Prize for Teaching Excellence, the highest teaching prize awarded at Yale College. In 2008, she won the Stanton Prize from the Society for Philosophy and Psychology for outstanding contributions to interdisciplinary research. 

In 2012, she was awarded the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Awards for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology. She was recently voted one of Popular Science Magazine's Brilliant 10 Young Minds and one of Time Magazine's "Leading Campus Celebrities".

She received her A.B. in Psychology and Biology from Harvard University in 1997 and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard in 2003.