Associate Professor Nicole Bell received her PhD in 2001 from the University of Melbourne. She subsequently held a postdoctoral appointment within the NASA/Fermilab Theoretical Astrophysics Group at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA from 2001-2004, followed by a prestigious Sherman Fairchild Prize Fellowship within the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology from 2004–2006. Bell commenced a continuing appointment at the University of Melbourne in 2007.
A/Prof Bell’s research lies at the interface of particle physics with astrophysics and cosmology. Her currents interests include dark matter, particularly collider searches, indirect detection, and dark matter models; baryogenesis; neutrino physics and astrophysics; astroparticle physics; particle physics beyond the Standard Model.
A/Prof Bell has received numerous grants and fellowships to undertake research in particle and astroparticle physics. Most recently, Bell was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship for work that draws on new experimental data at the cosmic and energy frontiers, with a particular focus on dark matter and the cosmological matter-antimatter asymmetry.
A/Prof Bell has received many awards and prizes including the Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in Physics (2001), Alvin Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral Research (2004), Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholarship (2004), Michelson Postdoctoral Prize Lectureship (2006), the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research (2011) and an ARC Future Fellowship (2012). In addition, Bell undertakes a variety of scientific advisory roles and acts as referee for a number of high-profile physics journals including Physical Review D, Physical Review Letters, Physics Letters B and the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Bell is a member of the American Physical Society and Australian Institute of Physics.
Bell, N.F., Dent, J.B., Galea, A.J., Jacques, T.D., Krauss, L.M. & Weiler, T.J. "Searching for Dark Matter at the LHC with a Mono-Z", arXiv:1209.0231 Phys. Rev. D. 86, 096011 (2012).
Bell, N.F., Dent, J.B., Galea, A.J., Jacques, T.D., Krauss, L.M. & Weiler, T.J. "W/Z Bremsstrahlung as the Dominant Annihilation Channel for Dark Matter, Revisited", Phys. Lett. B. 706, 6–12 (2011).
Beacom, J.F., Bell, N.F. & Mack, G.D. "General Upper Bound on the Dark Matter Total Annihilation Cross Section". Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 231301 (2007).
Beacom, J.F., Bell, N.F., Hooper, D., Pakvasa, S. & Weiler, T.J. "Decay of High-Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos". Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 181301 (2003).
Abazajian, K.N., Beacom, J.F. & Bell, N.F. "Stringent Constraints on Cosmological Neutrino-Antineutrino Asymmetries from Synchronized Flavor Transformation". Phys. Rev. D. 66, 013008 (2002).
