Non-Resident Scholar, Religion
Yale University
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Margarita A. Mooney Suarez Vitae
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Margarita Mooney Suarez is Associate Professor in the Department of Practical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Professor Mooney Suarez founded Scala Foundation in 2016 and continues to serve as Scala’s Executive Director. Scala’s mission is to infuse meaning and purpose into American education by restoring a classical liberal arts education. At Scala’s conferences, reading groups, seminars, webinars, student trips, intellectual retreats, and intensive summer program, Scala equips students, writers, artists, intellectuals and teachers with the ideas and networks needed to revitalize culture.

As a woman whose work lies at the intersection of the social sciences with philosophy and theology, she excels at encouraging students, readers, listeners and audiences to think about important questions in culture, education and faith in new and different ways. She is a frequent speaker to women’s organizations, think tanks, schools, church groups and a variety of other nonprofits as well as businesses about faith and values. In addition to her scholarly books and articles, she has written for publications that reach wide audiences both inside and outside academia such as Real Clear Policy, Scientific American, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Miami Herald, Plough Magazine, America Magazine, First Things, Hedgehog Review, Public Discourse, Church Life Journal and the National Catholic Register.

She is a passionate keynote speaker on higher education, culture and Christianity at venues including Yale University, Harvard Law School, Columbia University, Duke University, Pepperdine and the Catholic University of America. Her writing and research have been widely cited and praised, including by David Brooks in The New York Times, and Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor-at-large of National Review, who has written that “the world needs more Margarita Mooney [Suarez].” She has been interviewed by organizations such as the Acton Institute, Duke Divinity School and the Institute for Humane Studies.

Dr. Mooney Suarez 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 Yale University, Princeton University, Pepperdine University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Mooney Suarez’s most recent book with Cluny Media, The Love of Learning: Seven Dialogues on the Liberal Arts (2021), grew out of her decades of experience as a teacher and scholar. Her book Faith Makes Us Live: Surviving and Thriving in the Haitian Diaspora (University of California Press, 2009) demonstrated how religious communities support the successful adaptation of Haitian immigrants in the U.S., Canada and France, and she’s the co-author (with Camille Z. Charles, Mary S. Fischer,  and Douglas S. Massey) of Taming the River: Negotiating the Academic, Financial, and Social Currents in Selective Colleges and Universities (Princeton University Press, 2009).