ANA BELL

I'm Ana Bell, a lecturer in the EECS Department at MIT for Introduction to Computer Science and Programming using Python (6.0001), Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science (6.0002), and an instructor for these on edX. I received my Bachelor of Applied Science in 2007 from the University of British Columbia in Canada. I received my MA in 2009 and my PhD in 2013 from Princeton University. My research was in computational biology with the Troyanskaya Lab, specifically using computational techniques to answer the questions: what do genes do, and how do genes interact with each other and other small molecules?

I now have a book published, called Get Programming: Learn to code with Python, from Manning Publications. My aim was to write an easy-to-follow book that guides anyone who has never programmed before through short lessons and exercises, with the ultimate goal of having them learn their first real programming language! The book ramps up slowly, and I hope it makes programming not intimidating. You don't have to make a career out of programming -- harness its power to help you automate small tasks in your life!