Scott Strobel was appointed Yale University Provost in 2020. As Provost, he serves as the university’s chief academic and chief budgetary officer, responsible for setting and advancing Yale’s academic and research priorities. From strategic and financial planning to curricular and budgetary oversight, the Provost leads the faculty in their pursuit of research and teaching excellence. In this pursuit, Provost Strobel focuses on helping Yale cultivate an ever more ethical, diverse, interdependent community of teachers, scholars, and students whose work is predicated on the free exchange of inspired ideas.
Provost Strobel is also the Henry Ford II Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry (MB&B). He joined the Yale faculty in 1995 and served as department chair from 2006-09. From 2011-2019, he served as Vice President for West Campus Planning & Program Development, where he orchestrated the emergence of the West Campus as a research and educational center of the University. In July 2014, he took on additional responsibility as the inaugural Deputy Provost for Teaching & Learning, overseeing the creation of the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning housed within the York Street wing of Sterling Memorial Library. As a professor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), he instituted a program to explore microbial and chemical diversity in the world’s rainforests as a means to inspire undergraduate students in the sciences. He chaired the University Science Strategy Committee, which was tasked with developing a ten-year strategic plan for the sciences and engineering at Yale. In 2019, as Vice Provost for Science Initiatives, he was charged with beginning the implementation of that plan. He was awarded the Dylan Hixon Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences, the Graduate Mentoring Award in the Sciences and the Yale Science and Engineering Award for Meritorious Service. His research group explores the chemical basis of RNA function and the role of the fluoride ion channel in cellular fluoride detoxification.