David Bell, former senior Ford Foundation executive and instructor in the Economics Department, has been appointed Gamble Professor of Population Sciences and International Health at the School of Public Health (SPH).

Bell will also chair the school's Department of Population Sciences and direct the Center for Population Studies.

"I'm very pleased to have the chance to come back to Harvard," Bell said yesterday, adding that because he has only been at the University for three weeks, he has no specific plans yet for changes at the SPH.

Returning From Travels

Bell said the SPH "probably ought to be involved in a few more overseas projects as part of an effort to figure out how to provide better health care to poor communities around the world and in the United States."

In the late 1950's Bell taught economics here and worked at the Littauer Center for Public Administration.

As executive vice president of the Ford Foundation's international division, Bell administered an annual budget of more than $40 million in development grants. Bell has also served as the director of the United States Agency for International Development and of the Bureau of the Budget during the Kennedy administration.

The last permanent head of the Population Sciences Department, Nathan Keyfitz, Andelot Professor of Sociology in Arts and Sciences and of Demography in Public Health, yesterday called Bell "a very able man with a very distinguisehd career.... He's forceful and penetrating and accustomed to getting things done," Keyfitz, who served on the committee that chose Bell, said.

Filling the Gap

The SPH's Department of Population Sciences has been without a permanent director for more than a year. During that time Joseph J. Harrington, McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering, and George S. Masnick, associate professor of Population Sciences at the School of Public Health, have acted as interim directors.

"Harvard has a major responsibility to develop and encourage its health programs in partnership with other countries," Howard H. Hiatt, dean of the Faculty of Public Health, said yesterday, "and the extensive experience that David Bell has in international affairs really puts us in an extremely strong position."