Richard Bell received his PhD from Harvard University and his BA from the University of Cambridge. His research interests focus on American history between 1750 and 1877 and he welcomes enquiries from graduate students working in this period. Visit his website. Download his CV. 

Bell was recently an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2021-2023) and has held research fellowships at more than two dozen libraries and institutes. Since coming to College Park in 2006 he has served as the Mellon Fellow in American History at Cambridge University, the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society, a Mayer Fellow at the Huntington Library, a Research Fellow at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition and Resistance at Yale University and as a Resident Fellow at the John W Kluge at the Library of Congress. He is also a frequent lecturer on the C-Span television network and at the Smithsonian Institution. 

Bell is the recipient of more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honor for teaching faculty in the Maryland state system. He is also one of the conveners of the Washington Area Early American Seminar, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, an elected member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. On campus, Bell serves as Chair of the UMD United Kingdom Fellowships Committee and was a founding member of The 1856 Project. He lives in University Park, MD, with his wife and two daughters.