Deanne Bell is an engineer, television host, and entrepreneur. Her television hosting credits include PBS, ESPN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, DIY Network, and most recently CNBC’s Make Me a Millionaire Inventor. She is also the founder and CEO of Future Engineers, an education technology company that engages students in online contests and challenges. Future Engineers’ inaugural competition, developed with the ASME Foundation and NASA, produced historic achievements including the first student-designed 3D print in space. Her company has since become a US Department of Education SBIR awardee, and was selected by NASA to host the Mars 2020 “Name the Rover” contest.

Previously she worked at Raytheon for three years as an optomechanical engineer. She focused on packaging FLIR into a helicopter-mounted gimbal, involving the redesign of the afocal telescope and the packaging of the cryo-cooled imager and CCD camera. She then worked for other R&D programs at the company, including as head of the mechanical design and build of a synthetic aperture ladar (SALTI) optical test bench.

She earned her BS in mechanical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and is the 2019 Young Alumni Award recipient for its McKelvey School of Engineering.