Margarita Mooney Clayton is an Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she teaches classes such as philosophy of social science; aesthetics and education; and devotion to Mary. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Scala Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to restore meaning and purpose in America through beauty in education, culture, and worship. Professor Mooney Clayton received her B.A. in Psychology from Yale University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University. She has also been on the faculty of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Yale University and has taught for the Pepperdine School of Public Policy.
She is the author of The Wounds of Beauty: Seven Dialogues on Art and Education (Cluny Media, 2022) The Love of Learning: Seven Dialogues on the LiberalArts (Cluny Media, 2021), and Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora (University of California Press, 2019). She has also written for publications that reach wide audiences both inside and outside academia such as Real Clear Policy, Scientific American, Chronicle of Higher Education, First Things, Public Discourse, Hedgehog Review, National Catholic Register, and Church Life Journal.
