Dr. Natasha Bell

FACULTY AFFILIATE   |   Global Change Center

Biological Systems Engineering

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natashabell@vt.edu

Dr. Natasha Bell is an assistant professor of ecological engineering in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech, where her research program advances ecologically engineered water treatment technologies to enhance water quality, climate resilience, and environmental health. Her work integrates ecological design principles with engineering approaches to develop nature-based solutions for nutrient pollution, emerging contaminants, and decentralized wastewater challenges across rural, urban, and coastal landscapes. Dr. Bell’s group investigates a suite of ecological treatment systems, with a focus on treatment wetlands, as well as innovative controlled environment agriculture systems. Her team couples hydrologic monitoring, microbial and chemical analyses, and system-level modeling to understand treatment performance and to guide resilient infrastructure planning under changing climate and land-use conditions.

Dr. Bell earned her BS and PhD in Biosystems Engineering from Clemson University, and her MS in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Before earning her PhD, she spent two years working with a civil and environmental engineering consulting firm in New York City, where she carried out site investigations and provided construction oversight. Prior to joining VT, she served as assistant professor in the Department of Engineering and Water Resources Center at East Carolina University. She is a first-generation college graduate and a licensed Professional Engineer.