Presents a short biography of one of the winners of the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. The 2012 winner is Laurie R. Santos for creative and insightful investigations of cognition across a broad range of species and psychological domains, illuminating cognitive development and cognitive evolution. Laurie R. Santos links many branches of psychological inquiry in her research, including animal behavior, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, judgment and decision making, and social psychology. In particular, her studies of biases, irrationalities, and errors--where rational decision making fails, rather than succeeds--are providing remarkable insights into how cognitive biases evolved and how decision making operates at a fundamental level. Her accomplishments beautifully illustrate the power of comparative studies of animal learning and behavior to help us understand the human mind. Santos' Award citation and a selected bibliography are also presented here.