David Strobbe
Professor
Montclair State University
Dr. David Strobbe serves as a Producer on the Creative Enterprise team within the Office of the President at The Juilliard School. A specialist in transformative leadership and artistic administration, his work intersects performance excellence with strategic institutional development. Dr. Strobbe holds a doctorate in Transformative Leadership in Higher Education, a credential that informs his current faculty appointments at Montclair State University and the University of Kentucky, where he delivers curricula focused on Creative Thinking and Arts Administration.
Dr. Strobbe’s scholarship centers on the activation of creative potential. He is the co-author of the textbook Igniting the Spark: Activating Your Creative Mind, which provides a theoretical and practical framework for nurturing divergent thinking. His recent research, presented at the 14th International Conference on Health, Wellness, & Society in Sweden, examines the role of creative thinking as a catalyst for civic engagement, democratic participation, and psychological resilience within collegiate populations.
His administrative career is underpinned by a transition from high-level performance to executive operations. Dr. Strobbe has previously contributed to the operational and outreach initiatives of the MET Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and the National Music Council of the United States. This administrative expertise was preceded by an extensive career as a principal ballet dancer with premier global companies, including the Hong Kong Ballet, Cleveland San Jose Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, and Smuin Ballet, as well as notable performances in professional musical theater at the Walnut Street Theater and Fulton Theater.
As a practitioner, Dr. Strobbe is the co-founder of Building Creative Minds, an organization dedicated to the longitudinal development of creative competencies in youth. Through the flagship program The BIG You, he facilitates leadership and confidence-building workshops for middle school students, including an annual intensive in Park City, Utah, that serves over 120 underprivileged students each summer.