A 1970 Chevelle helped drive the 15-year-old Brad Bell to the world of workplace psychology. Six months of rebuilding a beat-up car slathered with gray primer "got me interested in knowing how things work," he says.

Now 33 and an associate professor of human resources studies at the ILR School, Bell is rounding a professional curve. In August, he received the first Early Career Achievement Award given by the Academy of Management's Human Resources Division.

Nominating him, ILR colleagues Lee Dyer and Patrick Wright called Bell "an extraordinarily active researcher" with 23 published works in two fields -- training and development, and team effectiveness.

Bell examines workplace issues with the same take-apart-and-put-back-together skills used to get the Chevelle on the road in his south Jersey hometown. He looks at workplace teams and workplace training and asks: What works? What doesn't work? Why?

Research, teaching and consulting on teams and training began in his undergraduate years as a psychology major at the University of Maryland. Those experiences have grown into a 14-page resume spanning Bell's graduate work at Michigan State University and his six years in the ILR School.

Bell helped the Toledo Fire Department figure out whom to hire. He collaborated on a paper that reports there is something to the theory that we attach -- or detach -- to work organizations as we did to early caregivers. At the Michigan Center for Truck Safety, Bell rode along as drivers purposefully jackknifed their rigs; it helped him help their bosses figure out how to most effectively teach safe driving skills.

When two red pandas died mysteriously at the National Zoo, Bell was part of a national panel assembled to get to the why of it. Breakdowns in leadership contributed to communication gaps in the care of the rare marsupials and led to their deaths, he found.

The toughest part of his work, Bell said, is "learning to say no to interesting projects ... I want to do everything. Learning to say no to things is very important. It's tough to do."

Mary Catt is a writer for the ILR School.