Professor / Author / Researcher
Professor, Executive Director of the Center for Urban Engagement
Wheaton College
About
Dr. Noah Toly is Executive Director of the Center for Urban Engagement and Professor of Urban Studies and Politics & International Relations at Wheaton College. His research and teaching focus on urban and environmental politics.
In 2011, Dr. Toly was named an Emerging Leader by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, where he now serves as Non-Resident Senior Fellow for Global Cities. In 2012-2013, he served as Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion. In 2015, he was the first recipient of the Emerging Public Intellectual award given by a coalition of North American think tanks in collaboration with the Centre for Christian Scholarship at Redeemer University College. And in 2020, he was appointed as Visiting Scholar at Duke Divinity School.
Dr. Toly is a frequent speaker on cities, urban life, and the environment. For seven years, he taught on global cities at the Free University of Berlin’s Center for Global Politics. He has given lectures at colleges and universities and for municipal administrations, public officials, and industry groups. His work has appeared in Books & Culture, Capital Commentary, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Comment, Next City, The Hedgehog Review, Quartz, and Sightings among other publications.
Dr. Toly has served on the Steering Committee of the Thriving Cities Project, and as a trustee of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies and the Evangelical Environmental Network. He currently serves on the advisory board for Together Chicago and among the directors of Exodus World Service, which mobilizes the Christian church in the Chicago area to befriend and serve refugees.