Laurie Santos — Internationally-acclaimed Professor of Psychology + Cognitive Science — Joins the EXPLO Network

EXPLO is excited to welcome Laurie Santos, professor of psychology and cognitive sciences at Yale University, to our growing network of dynamic and innovative thought leaders.

Santos teaches the most popular course in Yale’s 317-year history — “Psychology and the Good Life,” which addresses the question “what actually makes us happy?” through research and investigation. A quarter of all Yale undergraduates were enrolled in Santos’s course in its inaugural year — a fact that has attracted media attention around the globe.

Santos will be a keynote speaker at EXPLO at Yale’s CORE Day, the middle Wednesday of each session dedicated to teaching students how to lead a life of meaning and purpose. CORE Day pushes students to think about their own personal passions and strengths, post-high school paths and career opportunities, and then reflect on how these concepts can connect students to their future and the world around them. This is critical to our transformative summer camps.

Santos's keynote address will focus on her work in the psychology of happiness — a topic we believe will help our students with reflective explorations.

Santos has been awarded the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize for Outstanding Junior Faculty at Yale; was a selected speaker at the TED Global Conference in Oxford, UK; has been a featured speaker for the Association for Psychological Science Presidential Symposium; and was the recipient of the LEX Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences at Yale University.