Dr. Suzanne Bell is an Emeritus Professor and past Chair of the Department of Forensic and Investigative Sciences at West Virginia University. She has been involved in forensic science as a practitioner and educator for decades. Her career began at the New Mexico State Police Crime Laboratory where she worked in forensic chemistry and crime scene response. Positions with Los Alamos National Laboratory and Eastern Washington University followed before arriving at WVU in 2003. Among other roles, she served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Forensic Science. She has published many papers in and has taught and mentored students in forensic science and chemistry from undergraduate through post-doctoral levels. Her career has been dedicated to forensic education for students, forensic practitioners, and the public.

Dr. Bell served on the National Commission on Forensic Science (NCFS) from 2014 to 2017. She is the author of 13 books including multiple editions of a comprehensive introductory text and three editions of Forensic Chemistry. Her latest title is Understanding Forensic DNA Typing, which she co-wrote with Dr. John Butler, an internally recognized DNA working at the National Institutes of Science and Technology.