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Prof Shell obtained his undergraduate and honours degrees at UCT in the seventies writing on Islam at the Cape. He then went abroad to read for his Master’s degree at University of Rochester in 1976 in American colonial and revolutionary history and comparative slavery. He returned to SA to work on the Bo-Kaap museum. When this was opened in 1978, he returned to the US to read for his PhD at Yale University. His PhD thesis (1986) was entitled "Slavery at the Cape of Good Hope 1680-1731". While finishing his last chapter, he then took up a position in Santa Barbara as a visiting Professor. This was followed by an appointment as an Assistant Professor of African History at Princeton University from 1988 to 1996 where he became Director of African Studies.
Prof Shell authored a book in 1994 entitled Children of Bondage: A Social History of the Slave Society at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652-1838 (still in paper, still print, still cheap at R170.00). After Princeton he returned to SA where he was a Senior Lecturer and in charge of the History Dept. at the East London campus of Rhodes University. Here he was dismissed for bringing the university into disrepute by accusing it of nepotism and racism. Two of Rob’s black colleagues were retrenched. This was Rob’s most significant professional act since coming to SA and he is very proud of it.
Prof Shell was appointed as an Associate Professor in the department of Statistics at the University of the Western Cape in 2001. He is since January 2005 Extraordinary Professor of Historical Demography in the Statistics Department at UWC. He also teaches at CPUT in Population and ecology.
In 2004 he was the vice-president of DEMSA (Demographic Association of South Africa). In 2003 he was appointed for six months as the Nelson Mandela Chair of Africa studies, JNU in New Delhi where he worked on AIDS in India. He has published six articles in books, twelve articles in scholarly journals and some fifteen joint publications and other minor publications. One of his publications appeared in the July 2000 edition of Readers Digest and it was entitled "AIDS: We must go to War".
He has written several reviews and some 55 editorials and also had many television and radio appearances and made two films. He has attended more than fifty international conferences where he delivered papers on several topics but notably on Slavery, Islam and Hiv/aids. On 3 September 2004 he delivered the keynote address at the AGM of SANTA (SA National Tuberculosis Association) in Port Elizabeth with a talk entitled "Infectious diseases in South Africa: HIV/AIDS and TB, some statistical trends". He has also appeared on Capitol Hill, Washington USA where he addressed both houses select committees on African affairs and International Relations on the global Aids pandemic and how it is debilitating Africa.
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