Prof. Richard Bell
A scholar, writer and teacher at the University of Maryland, and specialist on the history and culture of the United States.
Biography
Prof. Richard Bell received a BA from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from Harvard University. He joined the Department of History and the University of Maryland in 2006, earned tenure in 2012 and promotion to the rank of full professor in 2020.
He is the author of the new book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home, which is shortlisted for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. He has won more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honour for teaching faculty in the Maryland state system.
Presently an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, he has held research fellowships at more than two dozen libraries and institutes including residencies at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance at Yale University and the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.
Rick is also a Trustee of the Maryland Historical Society and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, an elected member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and as a board member of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System Foundation.