Lauren C. Bell is Professor of Political Science and Dean of Academic Affairs at Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland, Virginia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Wooster and Masters of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at The University of Oklahoma. Bell previously served as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a United States Supreme Court fellow at the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, DC.

Dr. Bell is the author of
Filibustering in the U.S. Senate (Cambria Press, 2011), Warring Factions: Interest Groups, Money, and the New Politics of Senate Confirmation (The Ohio State University Press, 2002) and The U.S. Congress, A Simulation for Students (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005) as well as co-author of Perspectives on Political Communication: A Case Approach (Allyn & Bacon, 2008). In addition to these books, she has published single- and co-authored articles in several peer-reviewed journals, including The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, The Journal of Legislative Studies, The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Judicature.