Biography

Professor Kevin Bell comes from Newcastle in the UK, taking his B.Sc. in Analysis of Science and Technology from Manchester University before spending two significant periods of his professional career overseas. After nine years in Japan where he taught in Kishiwada High School and at a private language school, he moved to the United States in 1999, initially to take his Master of Arts in Teaching at Marlboro College in Vermont.

Post-graduation, Professor Bell’s dot.com work segued into academic leadership roles most recently at Northeastern University in Boston. At Northeastern he headed the Online Experiential Learning group and served four years as Executive Director and Senior Fellow for the Lowell Institute Innovation Incubator (Li3) researching intrinsic motivation of under-represented minority groups in STEM programs.

Prior to Northeastern University, Professor Bell was at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) where as Chief Academic Officer he was integral in the scaling of the largest not-for-profit online operation in the US. At SNHU he was the academic lead on the first federally approved Competency-based, Direct Assessment degree; College for America.

He received his doctorate University of Pennsylvania in 2014 with research into gameful design and student engagement in online courses. His recent book:

Game On! - Gamification, Gameful Design, and the Rise of the Gamer Educator arguably overuses variants on the word “Game” a lot but is otherwise a riveting read