---
title: '039 - Dr. Laurie Santos - Yale Professor and Founder of The Happiness Lab'
type: 'episode'
url: 'https://doc.social/episodes/039-dr-laurie-santos-yale-professor-and-founder-of-the-happiness-lab'
show: 'Beyond Medicine'
show_url: 'https://doc.social/podcasts/beyond-medicine'
published: '2021-01-19'
audio: 'unavailable — the host retired the file'
---

# 039 - Dr. Laurie Santos - Yale Professor and Founder of The Happiness Lab

A pre-pandemic recorded episode with Dr. Laurie Santos with The Happiness Lab. We discuss the factors leading to unhappiness in modern day academic culture and how to counteract them.

## Summary

Laurie Renee Santos is a cognitive scientist and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She is also Director of Yale's Comparative Cognition Laboratory, Director of Yale's Canine Cognition Lab, and Head of Yale's Silliman College

In January 2018, her course titled _Psychology and the Good Life_ became the most popular course in Yale's history, with approximately one-fourth of Yale's undergraduates enrolled.[[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_R._Santos#cite_note-auto-5) In September 2019, she became host of the podcast **_The Happiness Lab_**, published by Pushkin Industries — the media company led by journalists [Malcolm Gladwell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell) and [Jacob Weisberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Weisberg).