He did his doctoral work and received the Ph.D. in Sociology from Indiana University (Bloomington).
[1] Isaac began his professorial career at Florida State University in 1978 where he rose through the academic ranks to become the Mildred and Claude Pepper Distinguished Professor.
He joined the Sociology Department at Vanderbilt University in 2004, where he is now the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor (endowed chair) of Sociology & Political Economy.
[2][3] Isaac has published extensively in the fields of political sociology, political economy, social movements, labor studies, and historical processes of social change.
He is known for his published work in three major areas: (i) political economy of labor movements and class formation processes; (ii) civil rights and black liberation movement dynamics; and (iii) methodological approaches to incorporating qualitative events and turning points into quantitative models of social-historical change.