Professor Connor “Noor” Strobel is a Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows and a Collegiate Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. A sociologist by training, his research focuses on the relationship between identity and social inequality, examining how battles over identity claims shape collective behavior, knowledge sharing, resource utilization, and health and educational disparities. His research expertise and advocacy on behalf of students have been featured in numerous national media outlets, and he has served as an advisor to policymakers.
As a thematically oriented researcher, Professor Strobel leverages disparate insights from sociology and other social sciences to clarify concepts, test theories, and tell new stories. He has published on gender, sexuality, eating disorders, social media, social movements, political behavior, disability, and the law. Professor Strobel has employed surveys, interviews, focus groups, archival methods, participant and non-participant observations, and digital content scrubbers. He has used a variety of conventional analytical methods and has also developed innovative approaches for analyzing hard-to-observe populations.
Professor Strobel’s first co-authored book, The Politics of “Perverts”: The Political Attitudes and Actions of Non-traditional Sexual Minorities, was recently published by NYU Press. It is a pioneering work on the social and political lives of what are sometimes characterized as non-traditional sexual minority groups. In addition to covering pathbreaking topics, the book proposes novel approaches to measuring the policy preferences and political behavior of marginalized groups.
Professor Strobel is currently working on his third book project based on a stratified, multi-state survey, interviews, and focus groups with parents of neurodivergent children and resource providers. The project explores how they navigate complex, multi-scalar legal and resource environments driven by policy regimes that have lagged behind popular and medical understandings of neurodivergence. This pathbreaking study exposes sometimes opaque forces contributing to educational and resource inequality, and identifies remedies to make it easier for children to thrive.
His work has been published or is forthcoming in venues such as Gender Issues, Sociology Compass, Oxford University Press, Routledge, NYU Press, SAGE, and Palgrave-Macmillan. Professor Strobel’s research, teaching, and support of students have been covered by media outlets such as The New York Times, LA Times, PBS Newshour, San Francisco Chronicle, Faculti, and the Eating Disorder Association of Ireland.
Professor Strobel joined the University of Chicago in 2022, following the completion of his PhD at the University of California, Irvine. At the University of Chicago, Professor Strobel has tended to teach in the Self, Culture, and Society sequence and has regularly supported collaborative and independent graduate and undergraduate student research. He is a 2025 recipient of the Glenn and Claire Swogger Award for Exemplary Classroom Teaching. He currently serves on the College Council and was previously the Co-Chair of the Society of the Fellows.