Available to book
Laurie Santos
Mental Health
Resilience
Emotional Intelligence
Learn how to make wiser choices for a better life with Dr Laurie Santos, speaker, psychologist, and expert on human cognition.
Educator
Podcast
Academic
Psychology
Author
Personal Development
Mental Health Awareness
Dr Laurie Santos is a psychologist specialising in human cognition, its origins, and the evolutionary biases that affect our life choices. Her research focuses on how behavioural change through positive psychology can lead to a happier and more fulfilling life. She holds the title of Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology and is the former Head of Silliman College at Yale University. Her course, "Psychology and the Good Life", explores how psychological science can help make wiser choices for a better life. This course is Yale’s most popular in over 300 years and has been adapted into a free Coursera programme, taken by over 4 million people.
Laurie hosts "The Happiness Lab podcast", arguing that humans often misunderstand what makes us happy and act against our best interests. Based on her Yale course, she presents the latest scientific research to help listeners rethink happiness and improve their lives. Since its launch in 2019, the podcast has been downloaded over 100 million times.
Her research delves into how we are biologically driven by sex, influenced by others, and prone to repeating mistakes. By using evidence from the animal kingdom, Laurie explains our sometimes illogical behaviours and offers advice on how to use our human faculties to counteract evolutionary tendencies and lead better lives.
Laurie has been featured in numerous news outlets, including the New York Times, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, CBS This Morning, NPR, GQ Magazine, Slate, CNN, and Oprah Magazine. She has received multiple awards from institutions such as Yale and the American Psychological Association for her scientific and teaching contributions. She has been recognised as one of Popular Science’s “Brilliant 10” and was named TIME's “Leading Campus Celebrity.”
Topics, sessions and talks
The class Laurie Santos teaches at Yale, "Psychology and the Good Life", presents a set of scientifically validated strategies for living a more satisfying life. She will introduce some misconceptions and explain how our minds lie to us about what will make us happy. Laurie will end with what psychology research shows about what we really should strive for to live a happier and more satisfying life.
Book Dr Laurie Santos to inspire your team with groundbreaking insights on human behavior and happiness. Her expertise in positive psychology and engaging delivery will empower your audience to make wiser choices and lead more fulfilling lives. Transform your business culture with science-backed strategies from Yale’s most popular professor.
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frequently asked questions
Something we've not covered here?
Email laurie.santos@getapeptalk.com or call PepTalk on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US), and one of our speaker agents will contact you within hours to confirm Dr Laurie's availability and fees. If you can, please include your budget upfront – it helps us fast-track your request. It’s also helpful to know the date, format (virtual or in-person), location, and a bit about your audience.
Laurie Santos structures her sessions around the format of her Yale course, Psychology and the Good Life, using scientifically validated research findings to challenge common misconceptions about happiness before presenting evidence-based strategies drawn from positive psychology.
Dr Laurie Santos speaks on the science of happiness, the psychological misconceptions that lead people to make poor choices, and evidence-based strategies for living a more satisfying life. She is the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University, where her course Psychology and the Good Life became the most popular in the institution's 300-year history and has since been taken by over four million people via Coursera.
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Three to six months ahead is comfortable for most events, and 12 months is better for large conferences, peak-season dates or one specific in-demand speaker. Shorter timelines are workable, and PepTalk regularly fills last-minute and replacement bookings within days. Availability is the constraint, so get in touch as soon as you have a date.
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