Laurie Santos, a Yale professor and host of “The Happiness Lab” podcast, will launch Transylvania University’s Creative Intelligence series Sept. 19 with the keynote for this year’s academic convocation.
Santos will talk to the campus community about “The science of happiness: Evidence-based tips to feel better” in Haggin Auditorium at 4 p.m. Her visit is also made possible by the Bingham Center for Teaching Excellence and Hazelrigg Lecture Series for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Check out this academic year’s Creative Intelligence lineup, including the Kenan speaker, journalist Maria Hinojosa, and poets Ross Gay and Fady Joudah. This year’s theme is “Figuring Our Hope,” derived from Wendell Berry’s poem “Testament.”
“Like the speaker in the poem, the series seeks hope in what we may be able to imagine, even when the present feels hopeless,” said professor and series director Kremena Todorova. “It calls on us to draw on our available resources, including art and community, while we live through difficult times. And it affirms the power to be found in human connections.”
This year’s convocation speaker will launch the series on a feel-good note. Santos, whose podcast has over 100 million downloads, is an expert in the science of happiness. In her Psychology and the Good Life class, she focuses on how the field of study can help make our lives more fulfilling.
The course has caught the attention of national media like the New York Times, “The Today Show” and GQ magazine. Her numerous science and teaching honors include being voted one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” young minds. Time also named her as a “Leading Campus Celebrity.”
Santos is Yale’s Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology.