[3] Nobles' scholarship focuses on the comparative study of racial politics, categorization, violence, and reconciliation.

[6] Nobles' mother and father were raised South Carolina and Tennessee, respectively; both attended schools that were legally segregated on the basis of race.

[7][8] Nobles was raised primarily in the Bronx; her family moved to New Rochelle, New York, when she was in junior high.

[10] Nobles' 1995 dissertation was titled, "Responding with 'Good Sense:' The Politics of Race and Censuses in Contemporary Brazil".

[10] Nobles joined the faculty of MIT in 1999 as an associate professor of political science.