Lauren Hunter Naples, Ed.D., is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Her research broadly focuses on the development of social and emotional skills to enhance student well-being among children with diverse learning needs. Her most recent projects involved designing, implementing, and evaluating a positive psychology intervention program for fostering gratitude, optimism, persistence, and zest among young students with social cognition challenges. Lauren also is interested in using design-based mixed methods research to investigate the psychometric properties and socioecological validity of assessment tools targeting student well-being and social and emotional health in elementary school settings.

Lauren joined the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence after receiving an Ed.D. in special education and disability studies, with a concentration in translational neuroscience, from the George Washington University. Lauren is nationally board-certified as a mental health counselor specializing in play therapy with an M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and she holds a B.S. in applied developmental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Her work at the Center focuses on collaborating within research-practice partnerships to develop and adapt strengths-based strategies that promote access to effective SEL instruction for the widest range of student diversity. Lauren is passionate about engaging in participatory action research to co-create communities of inclusion that encourage all students to grow and thrive as happy, healthy, productive members of society.