Staff
Corinne Coia (she/her/hers), Director of Yale College Wellness Programs
Corinne Coia is the Director of Yale College Wellness Programs. Corinne provides oversight and leadership for the Good Life Center and the Yale College Community Care program. She loves working with students through a holistic lens to help support them through their unique life challenges. She has experience working with members of the LGBTQ+ community and has extensive experience working with topics such as stress management, mindfulness, sleep, body image and athlete specific issues. Corinne earned her Master's in Social Work and Bachelor's in Kinesiology from the University of New Hampshire where she was a member and captain of the Women's Basketball team. Corinne currently resides in New Haven with her wife Elizabeth, their daughter and two dogs. Corinne enjoys hiking, home renovations and painting/photography.
Vanessa Blas (she/her/hers), Woodbridge Fellow & Director of Programming
Vanessa Blas is the Woodbridge Fellow for the Good Life Center during the 2023-2024 academic year. She graduated from Yale College in 2022 with a B.A. in Anthropology and recently received an M.P.H. at the Yale School of Public Health. Her work as a student focused on advancing health equity in various communities, particularly in the areas of mental health among adolescents in American Samoa and Black maternal health in Waterbury, CT. She is also passionate about promoting wellness on campus through community-building and strengthening, as she was a Chief Aide and Graduate Affiliate for her undergraduate residential college Timothy Dwight (Ashé!). Vanessa enjoys cooking, running around New Haven, reading new books, binge-watching countless sitcoms, and spending time with her family and their new dog, Freya.
Laurie Santos (she/her/hers), Founder & Faculty Director
Dr. Laurie Santos is a Professor of Psychology and was previously Head of Silliman College at Yale University. Dr. Santos is an expert on human cognition and the cognitive biases that impede better choices. Her course, Psychology and the Good Life, teaches students how the science of psychology can provide important hints about how to make wiser choices and live a life that’s happier and more fulfilling. Psychology and the Good Life recently became Yale’s most popular course in over 300 years, with almost one out of four students at Yale enrolled. Her course has been featured in numerous news outlets including The New York Times, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, GQ Magazine, Slate and O! Magazine. A winner of numerous awards both for her science and teaching, she was recently voted as one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” young minds, and was named in Time Magazine as a “Leading Campus Celebrity.”
Staff History
Tracy George (she/her/hers), Inaugural Director
Tracy George, MPH, CHES, CYT-200, is the Inaugural Director of the Yale Well initiative and co-creator of the Good Life Center, Yale’s first student wellness center. She is a long-time advocate of health and wellness at Yale, having received her MPH in Social & Behavioral Sciences from the School of Public Health, and worked in Yale Health’s Student Wellness office for five years. She is a certified Koru Mindfulness teacher, having taught hundreds of students over the last few years, a Certified Health Education Specialist, and a certified 200-hour yoga teacher with the Mindful Yoga Center. After two fruitful years directing programming at the Good Life Center, she launched her own wellness consulting platform in the spring of 2019. Check it out here.
Alexa Vaghenas (she/her/hers), Woodbridge Fellow & Director of Programming
Alexa Vaghenas (Yale College ‘20) served as the Good Life Center Woodbridge Fellow for the 20-21’ and 21-22’ academic years. During this time, she enjoyed trying to embed values of community and wholeness into campus wellness programming, as well as serving as the lead designer of the Good Life Center space at Yale Schwarzman Center. She is an enthusiast for wellness education, graduating with a B.S. in Psychology and as a member of the Education Studies Scholar program, an application-based cohort focused on the intersection of education practice, research, and policy. She is grateful to the Good Life Center for encouraging her to think about the holistic nature of wellness, as well as to cultivate creativity, curiosity, and playfulness in daily life.
Jackie Zhang (he/him/his), Woodbridge Fellow & Director of Programming
Jackie Zhang was the Woodbridge Fellow for the Good Life Center for the 2022–2023 academic year. Originally from New Jersey, he graduated from Yale in 2022 with a B.S. in Psychology. During his time as an undergrad, his work on campus centered around his love for community building and community care. He served as a Project Coordinator for Yale’s Communication and Consent Educators (CCE) program and as a First-Year Counselor (FroCo) for Silliman College. Jackie is deeply passionate about eating delicious foods, documenting memories, practicing self-care, consuming content, contemplating said content, and spending quality time with his loved ones.