Ana Bell

Ana Bell is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at MIT. She specializes in computer science education, particularly in introductory programming courses using Python. Her teaching portfolio includes courses like 6.100A/6.0001, 6.100B/6.0002, and 6.UWTD, which are available on MIT OpenCourseWare and edX. Bell holds a B.A.Sc. from the University of British Columbia (2007), an M.A. (2009), and a Ph.D. (2013) from Princeton University, where her research focused on computational biology in the Troyanskaya Lab.

Her research interests bridge educational technology and computational biology, with publications on MOOC student performance and gene interaction networks. She authored Get Programming: Learn to Code with Python (Manning Publications) and a companion video series, Get Programming with Python in Motion. She also created Doodle Debug, a coloring book for programmers.

Bell has been featured on podcasts such as Python Podcast.__init__ and Women in Tech with Ariana, discussing programming education and her academic journey. Her work emphasizes making programming accessible to beginners and leveraging technology for educational outreach.