Laurie R. Santos

Career and research In 2003, she began as an assistant professor in psychology and cognitive science at Yale University, earning tenure as an associate professor in 2009. Her research investigates the evolutionary origins of the human mind by comparing the cognitive abilities of humans and non-human animals, including primates and canines. Santos was Yale's director of undergraduate studies in psychology from 2010 to 2015.

In June 2016, Santos was named the head of Silliman College, one of the 14 undergraduate residential colleges at Yale, succeeding Nicholas Christakis. Santos was succeeded by Arielle Baskin-Sommers in March 2023.

Santos' Yale course, "Psychology and the Good Life" She is the editor (with Bruce Hood) of The Origins of Object Knowledge. She has been featured on National Public Radio, on Big Think, and—with her colleagues Paul Bloom, Tamar Gendler and Joshua Knobe she is a regular contributor to Bloggingheads.tv’s Mind Report.

Santos has had to retract two scientific papers because of coding errors in her lab.

Podcast: The Happiness Lab Since September 2019, Santos has hosted the podcast The Happiness Lab, which examines the latest scientific research on factors affecting our well-being and happiness. The show completed its first 10-episode season in November 2019, and has spent 126 days on the U.S. Podcasts Chart, peaking at No. 3. Santos produced further episodes of her podcast. The podcast published by Pushkin Industries, the media company led by journalists Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg, formerly of Slate magazine.

Writing in the Financial Times, Fiona Sturges wrote: "Santos is the voice of sanity, not to mention scrupulous research. [She's] a warm yet authoritative host who shows us the contradictions in our psychological impulses."

Honors and awards In 2007, Santos was featured in Popular Science as one of the journal's “Brilliant Ten” young scientists. In 2008, she was awarded the Stanton Prize for outstanding early-career contributions to interdisciplinary research in philosophy and psychology by the Society for Philosophy and Psychology and the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication or Research by Yale University. In 2010, she was a featured speaker at the TED Global Conference in Oxford, UK. In 2012, she was awarded Yale University's Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences, the highest teaching prize awarded at Yale College, and the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology.

In 2013, she was voted as one of Time magazine's leading campus celebrities. In 2016, she served as the President of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. In 2018, she received a Genius Award from the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey. on scientific research directed by Ian Cheney.

Personal life Santos is married to philosopher Mark Maxwell.