People
Graduate Director
Travis Bell
Interim Director of Graduate Programs and Research
Office: CIS 3101
Phone: 813/974-2591
Email: trbell@usf.edu
Bio
Travis R. Bell (Ph.D., University of South Florida) is Interim Director of Graduate
Programs and Research and assistant professor of digital and sports media in the Zimmerman
School of Advertising & Mass Communication at the University of South Florida. Also
an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Dr Bell's primary research focuses on sports
media often at an intersection with race and gender. Bell is lead author for CTE,
Media, and the NFL (2019, Lexington Books), which explores the role of media in constructing
chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) as a public health issue and a football epidemic.
His interdisciplinary research appears in Communication & Sport, International Journal
of Sport Communication, Howard Journal of Communications, along with other communication,
film, media, sociology, and sport journals.
Bell is a board member for the International Association for Communication and Sport and is the communication director for the Communication and Sport Division in the National Communication Association. He was a sports broadcast journalist for 12 years at five local television stations before he joined the Z School faculty in 2012 as a multimedia journalism instructor, a position he held for seven years before promotion to assistant professor. He has produced five documentary films, including two connected to race and high school football. You can read more on his website www.travisrbell.com.