Professor Trevor Bell is a geographer who studies landscape history from a variety of perspectives, including surface evolution, climate change impacts and human-environment interactions. His university education (Trinity College, BA ’83; Memorial, MSc ‘87; Alberta PhD ’93) provided a strong interdisciplinary foundation that supported expansive curiosity-driven research interests throughout his career, while his sustained partnerships inspire solution-oriented research for communities and governments. The impacts of Professor Bell’s research and scholarship are as broad as they are deep, integrating expertise from a range of disciplines in the earth, life, and social sciences. He is a research leader who has co-founded several successful research networks and played a guiding role in the internationally acclaimed ArcticNet NCE. He is actively involved with international and national working groups and expert networks to study the impacts of, and adaptation actions for, a changing climate in the coastal Arctic.

Professor Bell twice received the Arctic Inspiration Prize (2013, 2016) for knowledge-to-action plans that benefit Arctic Peoples. His most recent SmartICE community research partnership, which provides sea-ice monitoring for communities, is transforming to a northern social enterprise that enhances local travel safety and sustainable resource development in the face of climate change. Through its social enterprise model, SmartICE is harnessing the vast potential of Inuit youth and inspiring a new generation to embrace knowledge and research as a vehicle for economic development and well-being in their communities.