Katy Croff Bell


Katy Croff Bell is a marine explorer who has been on more than 30 oceanographic and archaeological expeditions.

Education

Bell received a bachelor of science in ocean engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000, working with Professor David Mindell in the Deepwater Archaeology group. Following college, she spent 2001 as a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow in the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration. She completed a master's degree in maritime archaeology at the University of Southampton, before moving to the Graduate School of Oceanography in Rhode Island. She was appointed a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2006. At the University of Rhode Island, she was awarded the Ada Sawyer Award in 2007 and the Robert McMaster Award in 2008. Bell completed her PhD, "On the Origin of Submarine Sediment Features in the Southern Aegean Sea," at the University of Rhode Island in 2011, under the supervision of Robert Ballard.

Research and career

In 2011, Bell became vice president of the Ocean Exploration Trust. She was Chief Scientist of Robert Ballard's exploration vessel E/V Nautilus, overseeing expeditions to the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and the eastern Pacific Ocean. The Nautilus Exploration Program is an open science initiative, sharing the process and outcomes of ocean exploration with everyone. The expedition attracted significant media coverage, and Bell gave several interviews and lectures.
She was a 2014 MIT Media Lab Director's Fellow. In addition to leading expeditions, Bell gave lectures about underwater exploration and technology. When Bell was pregnant with her first child in 2015, she used telepresence technology to participate in Nautilus expeditions in the Gulf of Mexico and eastern Pacific Ocean. That year, she took part in the social media campaign #ILookLikeAnEngineer. She led a team of MIT explorers on a deep-ocean exploration off the coast of Southern California in 2016. In 2017, as an MIT Visiting Scientist, she created the Open Ocean initiative at the Media Lab. Bell is developing technology for ocean exploration projects, to allow for remote science and education. At the Open Ocean initiative, she is reimagining the future of ocean exploration and storytelling.
Bell is vice chair of the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee. She is a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver. In July 2017, she became the first female Technology Fellow at National Geographic. She is a founding member of the , a group who have come together to find solutions to complex ocean problems.