Clay Routledge was a scholar at the Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth from 2020-2022. During his time at NDSU, he held positions as the Arden and Donna Hetland Distinguished Professor of Business and a faculty member in the Department of Management and Marketing and the Department of Psychology.

Dr. Routledge is a leading expert in existential psychology. His work examines how the need for meaning and related psychological motives influence and are influenced by cognitive, affective, and self-regulatory proccesses, individual differences, momentous life expericnes, personal and professional goals, social relationships, spirituality and religiosity, entrepreneurship, innovation, prosocial behavior, and attitudes about the future. He is an award-winning scholar who has published over 100 academic papers and co-edited three books. He is the author of two books, Nostalgia: A Psychological Resource and Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World, and the TED-Ed animated lesson Why Do We Feel Nostalgia?