He focuses on developing nations, energy and environment issues, Islamic faith, culture and law, and oil politics.
Starr has advised three U.S. presidents on Russian/Eurasian affairs and chaired an external advisory panel on U.S. government-sponsored research on the region, organized and co-authored the first comprehensive strategic assessment of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1999.
[5] He began work as an archaeologist in Turkey and in 1974 started the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, which opened U.S. research contact with Central Asia.
[7][8] Despite increasing minority hiring, Starr's presidency contained clashes with students over such issues as divestment from South Africa and the dismissal of a campus minister, as well as his desire to turn Oberlin into "Harvard of the Midwest.
"[9][10] After a clash with students on the front lawn of his home in April 1990, Starr took a leave of absence as president from July 1991–February 1992.
[12] Frederic Starr is a member of the World Society for the Study, Preservation and Popularization of the Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan.
[13] In 2018, together with the Chairman of the World Society PhD Firdavs Abdukhalikov, the scientific director of the Project Edward Rtveladze, as well as the UNESCO representative in Uzbekistan Maria del Pilar Alvarez Laso, he participated in the presentation of a number of volumes in the series “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan in the World’s Collections”[14] In 2020, during the IV International Congress “Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan - the Foundation of a New Renaissance,” Starr criticized the incompetent restoration of architectural monuments in the country[15] and proposed reconstructing them virtually.