Robert Nobles will be the new vice president for research administration at Emory University, starting Dec. 1. 

In this role, Nobles will oversee the infrastructure that supports Emory’s research mission and manage the 10 departments that support faculty researchers. He will report to senior vice president for research Deb Bruner, RN, PhD, FAAN.

Nobles, who holds a PhD in public health, joins Emory after serving as the interim vice chancellor for research and engagement and associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Tennessee. 

While at the University of Tennessee, Nobles functioned as chief research officer and chief compliance officer, while providing strategic leadership for research development, funding, strategic investments, proposal development, grants/contracts negotiations and support, research communications, core facilities, research informatics, research safety and research integrity. He also served as the chair for the institutional compliance and campus safety committees.

Nationally, Nobles serves on the board of directors for Public Responsibility for Medicine and Research, and is a member of the executive committee for the Federal Demonstration Partnership. 

During his career as an administrator and health outcomes researcher, Nobles secured more than $30 million in public health grants from a diverse pool of funders including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health, Houston Endowment, City of Houston Health Department, AETNA Foundation, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

Nobles also served as a public health faculty member and as the research compliance officer at Texas A&M University and the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Before that, he was a public health prevention specialist for the CDC and a program manager for the state of Florida’s Department of Public Health. He has taught 25 discrete courses including epidemiology and health care finance to more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students across several higher education institutions since 2001.

Nobles earned his doctorate from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, majoring in health policy and management, epidemiology and health economics. He received his master’s degree in public health specializing in epidemiology and a bachelor of science in molecular biology from Florida A&M University.  

At Emory, Nobles will replace associate vice president for research Todd Sherer, who previously led Emory’s research administration on an interim basis.