Eric Bell received his Bachelors in Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Scotland, and PhD in Physics at Durham University, England. After a postdoctoral position at the University of Arizona working with Rob Kennicutt, he became a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany. He joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 2009, and is now a Professor of Astronomy there. Between 2017 and 2020, he had a joint appointment in the Honors College. Since 2020, he has been the Associate Chair of the Department of Astronomy. He has received the Heinz Maier Leibniz Prize, awarded to promising young German scientists, and the John Dewey Undergraduate Teaching Award and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship, both awarded for faculty making outstanding contributions to undergraduate education at the University of Michigan.