Laurie Santos

Laurie Santos is Associate Professor of Psychology at Yale University and the director of Yale University’s Comparative Cognition Laboratory. Laurie received her B.A. in Psychology and Biology from Harvard University in 1997 and her PhD in Psychology from Harvard in 2003. Her research explores the evolutionary origins of human cognition by studying the cognitive capacities present in nonhuman primates and domesticated dogs. She has investigated a number of topics in comparative cognition, including primates’ understanding of objects and physics, how primates reason about others’ minds, the evolutionary origins of irrational decision-making, and the evolution of prosocial behavior. Laurie’s scientific research has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Forbes, The New Yorker, New Scientist, Smithsonian, and Discover.