Dr. Joshua A. Bell is a cultural anthropologist and the curator of globalization at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). Combining ethnographic fieldwork with research in museums and archives, Bell examines the shifting local and global network of relationships between persons, artifacts and the environment. He carries out research with communities in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea, Oceanic collections at NMNH, and cellular telephony. At NMNH he is the acting director of the National Anthropological Archives and directs the Summer Institute of Museum of Anthropology. He is currently finishing an exhibition entitled Cellphone: Unseen Connections, which explores the global and local material and social and linguistic dimensions of our communicative devices. Bell has edited several books and written articles on materiality, the politics of heritage, visual return, history of collecting, and cell phone repair.