Phaedra Bell, PhD

Phaedra is an education leader and social intervention designer focused on co-creating systems that leverage the talents of diverse contributors to improve how we live.

Personal Hero

You all are my inspiration.

Words of Strength

Building bridges across disciplines

Vision

Working together across national and disciplinary boundaries will best position us to have a meaningful impact on dementia as a global public health challenge.

Strategy

Phaedra is leading the Multimodal Intergenerational Social Contact Intervention (MISCI), a brain health risk reduction strategy focused on addressing loneliness and social isolation. She's also working to develop literacy interventions that adapt to each learner’s strengths and challenges to promote cognitive reserve.

Impact

As an Atlantic Fellow, Phaedra partnered with local organizations to develop an ongoing evidence-informed and evidence-gathering system for lowering risk of brain health problems across the life course.

Motivation

The US needs to refocus efforts on a life course approach to lowering risk for cognitive decline.

Education & Experience

Phaedra received her undergraduate degree in linguistics and French from Georgetown University and her PhD in theater and performance studies from Stanford University where she also wrote and directed for the stage. After teaching theater at UC Santa Barbara and the University of Washington, Phaedra took a Fellowship in the Humanities at Stanford where she transitioned into education leadership with the office of Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. Bell shifted into Medical Education at the UCSF School of Medicine where she helped revise the MD curriculum and then consulted on the Pediatric Leadership for the Underserved (PLUS) residency program. Since her Atlantic Fellowship in Brain Health Equity, Bell has continued to run the Multimodal Intergenerational Social Contact Intervention and joined the ALBA neurobiology lab and UCSF Dyslexia Center in an operational leadership role.