Rate My Professor Beth Bell

Dr Beth Bell is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Mental Health and Wellbeing within the Department of Education at the University of York, a position she has held since joining the institution in 2021. Prior to this, she served as a Lecturer in Psychology at York St John University, following postdoctoral research at Bangor University and Northumbria University. She obtained her DPhil in Psychology from the University of Sussex in 2012. Bell is a Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society, with leadership experience as Chair of the North-East Branch from 2015 to 2018 and Cyberpsychology Conference Chair from 2022 to 2023. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2019 and serves as Pathway Director for Psychology Postgraduate Programmes, leader of the Future Youth Wellbeing Research (FYRE) Group, member of the Psychology in Education Research Centre (PERC), and Departmental Impact Lead.

Bell employs a mixed-methods interdisciplinary approach to research youth wellbeing in the digital age, examining risks and opportunities of digital media and technologies on adolescent mental health, including body image, self-harm, disordered eating and exercise, social media interactions, and harassment experiences among racially minoritised girls. She co-designs, develops, and evaluates interventions to enhance digital wellbeing literacy and promote positive technology use in educational and technological settings, alongside multi-sector collaborations for youth health. Her work has secured funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Nuffield Foundation, City of York Council, and third-sector organisations. Bell led a REF 2021 impact case study on improving adolescents’ body image and digital literacy; her Body Image in the Digital Age initiative has been delivered to thousands of young people. Key publications include “Digital Bodies: A controlled evaluation of a brief classroom-based intervention for reducing negative body image among adolescents in the digital age” (British Journal of Educational Psychology, 2021), “It’s Better Saying I Look Fat Instead of Saying You Look Fat: A Qualitative Study of U.K. Adolescents’ Understanding of Appearance-Related Interactions on Social Media” (Journal of Adolescent Research, 2021), and “Understanding the role of healthy eating and fitness mobile apps in the formation of maladaptive eating and exercise behaviors in young people” (JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2019). She holds two editorial board memberships and organised the Mental Health and Education conference in 2023.