Robert Edward Bell (November 29, 1918 - April 1, 1992) was a Canadian physicist and principal of McGill University from 1970 to 1979.

Born in England to Canadian parents, he was raised in Ladner, British Columbia. He received a B.A. in mathematics and physics in 1939 and a M.A. in physics in 1941 from the University of British Columbia. During World War II he researched VHF, UHF radar and microwave antennas for military purposes at the National Research Council Laboratories in Ottawa. After the war, from 1946 to 1952, he worked at the Chalk River Nuclear Energy Laboratory in Ontario in nuclear physics research and received a Ph.D. degree in physics from McGill University in 1948.

Between 1956 and 1960 he was an associate professor at McGill University. From 1958 to 1959 he worked in Copenhagen, Denmark at the Institute of Nils Bohr. In 1960 he was named Rutherford Professor of Physics and Director of the Foster Radiation Laboratory at McGill. Between 1964 and 1967 he was Vice-Dean for Physical Sciences. In 1969 he became Dean of Graduate Studies and Research and in 1970 he was appointed Principal and Vice-Chancellor. In 1979 he returned to the Physics Department leaving McGill in 1983. From 1978 until 1981, he was president of the Royal Society of Canada. From 1981 to 1990 he was a Canadian delegate to the science council of NATO.

Honours

• In 1954 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society
• In 1955 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
• In 1965 he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society.
• In 1971 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
• In 1978 he was awarded a Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from the University of British Columbia.

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