Melissa Nobles

Melissa Nobles (born May 13, 1963) is an American political scientist. Since August 2021, she has served as Massachusetts Institute of Technology's 7th chancellor, the university's top administrator for student life. At MIT, she is also the Class of 1922 Professor of Political Science.

Nobles served as the 9th dean of MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences from 2015 to 2021. Her scholarship focuses on the comparative study of racial politics, categorization, violence, and reconciliation.

Early life and education Melissa Nobles was born on May 13, 1963 at Sydenham Hospital in Harlem, New York City. Her mother was a social worker while her father worked as a police officer. Nobles' mother and father were raised in South Carolina and Tennessee, respectively; both attended schools that were legally segregated on the basis of race.

Nobles was raised primarily in the Bronx; her family moved to New Rochelle, New York, when she was in junior high. Her doctoral dissertation was titled Responding with good sense: the politics of race and censuses in contemporary Brazil (1995).

Career

After receiving her doctorate, Nobles held fellowships at the Boston University Institute for Race and Social Division and the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Between 2013 and 2015, Nobles headed the university's department of political science. From 2013 to 2014, Nobles was vice-president of the American Political Science Association. She was named MIT's 7th chancellor on June 17, 2021, assuming the office on August 18, 2021.

Selected works