Dr. Juliette B. Bell is the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s 15th leader and the fourth woman to hold the institution’s top administrative post since its founding in 1886. She took office July 1, 2012.
Bell is widely recognized for encouraging students to pursue careers in
science, technology, engineering and mathematics – known collectively as the STEM disciplines.
She leads an institution where roughly half its graduates are like her – the first in their immediate families to pursue a college degree.
Bell graduated as valedictorian from Talladega (Ala.) College in her hometown, earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. Her Ph.D. in chemistry is from Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), and she completed postdoctoral work in biochemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
After a stint as a researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Bell accepted an appointment in 1992 as a chemistry professor and biomedical research director at Fayetteville State University. There, she established the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement program to prepare students for biomedical science careers and was founding dean of the College of Basic and Applied Sciences. Her work earned her a promotion to FSU’s provost / vice chancellor for academic affairs.
In August 2009, Bell became chief academic officer at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. At Central State, she restructured the academic colleges to create the College of Science and Engineering. Bell also developed University College, an academic unit to improve student retention, oversaw the implementation of online courses and enhanced
international education programming.
Among her honors: the 2001 National Role Model Citation from Minority Access, Inc. and the 2000 Millennium Award for Excellence in Teaching in Mathematics, Science, Engineering and Technology at Historically Black Colleges from the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
