April J. Bell is a community health researcher, social epidemiologist, and health equity advocate dedicated to improving the sexual and reproductive health outcomes of historically marginalized adolescents. Dr. Bell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Her research focuses on reducing health disparities in sexual and reproductive health among Black adolescent women and girls through the development and implementation of novel methods and strategies created in partnership with community. Dr. Bell is committed to conducting research that is antiracist and does not perpetuate the harms of anti-blackness and white supremacy. She is working towards a future where Black girls are free.

Before returning to school to earn her PhD, she worked for 10 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where she managed and implemented more than 30 research projects, and 5 years as the Research Network Manager for the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), one of the largest and most successful HIV treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa.

A Hoosier by birth, she received her BA in Human Biology from Stanford University, her MPH with a dual concentration in Epidemiology and Social and Behavioral Sciences from the School of Medicine at Indiana University (IU), and her PhD in Epidemiology from the IU School of Public Health.