Leading Expert in Existential Psychology, Dr. Clay Routledge, Joins the Archbridge Institute as Senior Research Fellow

The Archbridge Institute is excited to announce the addition of Dr. Clay Routledge as a Senior Research Fellow. Dr. Routledge is the Challey Professor of Management for the Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth and the Department of Management and Marketing at North Dakota State University, a nonresident scholar at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion, and faculty affiliate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

Dr. Routledge’s research into the search for meaning and how meaning affects behaviors and attitudes will contribute to our understanding of the key determinants of human flourishing and the conditions for upward economic mobility. Combing insights from different academic disciplines, including both psychology and economics, is an essential step in moving toward a more holistic understanding of human flourishing. On working with the Archbridge Institute, Dr. Routledge stated:

I am excited to work with the Archbridge Institute because I believe our nation desperately needs research and education focused on promoting meaning in life, personal agency and responsibility, and the motivation to positively contribute to the social, cultural, and economic ideas and institutions that support human flourishing and make the American Dream a reality.

As a leading expert in existential psychology, I will be working on a number of projects focused on the human need for meaning in life and the role meaning plays in human flourishing. For example, I will be examining how people’s perceptions of meaning connect to their personal, social, educational, professional, and economic goals, as well as their broader attitudes about freedom, the American Dream, and the future of our nation and world.

On Dr. Routledge joining the Institute as a Senior Research Fellow, Archbridge President and CEO, Gonzalo Schwarz said:

We are thrilled to be working with Dr. Routledge and look forward to further understanding and removing the barriers that hold people back from achieving their dreams. We believe that meaning and existential agency have a crucial role in explaining a wide variety of economic and social phenomena and the field of human flourishing and social mobility will be vastly improved by the contributions of Dr. Routledge. We hope it spurs many more public debates and research for years to come on the need to have a more multidisciplinary approach to public policy conversations.

Dr. Routledge has published over 100 scholarly papers, co-edited three books on existential psychology, and authored the books Nostalgia: A Psychological Resource and Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World. His work has been featured in a variety of publications, from The Wall Street Journal to National Affairs. You can follow him on twitter @clayroutledge and click here from more on his work.