Professor of Psychology
Evolutionary origins of human cognition, origins of decision-making heuristics and biases, animal cognition (primates and dogs)
Laurie Santos’ research explores an age-old question: what makes the human mind unique? Her research explores the evolutionary origins of the human mind by comparing the cognitive abilities of humans and non-human animals, including primates and canines. Santos’s 2018 class Psychology and the Good Life is the most popular course ever taught at Yale. She has been a featured TED speaker, and voted one of the “Brilliant 10” young minds by Science Magazine in 2007. Santos has been featured on many national news and entertainment shows including the BBC, Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Vice News, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, NatGeo and many more.