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What are the fundamental constituents of the universe and the laws that govern them?
These are the big questions that the theoretical particle physics group are trying to answer. We have diverse research interests that range from astroparticle and cosmological physics that describe the physics of the early universe, to the physics of the Standard Model and beyond that describes the fundamental interactions and matter of the subnuclear world. Group members have played a major role in exploring neutrino physics and the identity of dark matter. Research areas of the Standard Model include the physics of the famed Higgs boson and elucidating why there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe. We also explore frontiers Beyond the Standard Model such as supersymmetry and extra dimensions, and how they may be discovered experimentally.
These are exciting times for particle physics as we are in the middle of the era of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment at CERN. The LHC has already discovered the Higgs boson; what it finds next could provide the answers to some of the most fundamental questions regarding the quantum Universe.
Faculty
Professor Nicole Bell
Dr Matthew Dolan
Dr Andrea Thamm
Professor Raymond Volkas
Research fellows
Dr Michael Baker
Dr Peter Cox
Dr Jayden Newstead

Dr Sandra Robles
PhD students
Innes Bigaran | Publications | i.bigaran@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Tomasz Dutka | Publications | tdutka@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Joshua Ellis | Publications | jellis@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Leon Friedrich | Publications | leonsfriedrich@student.unimelb.edu.au |
John Gargalionis | Publications | gargj@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Fred Hiskens | Publications | fhiskens@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Ayodele Ore | Publications | ayodeleo@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Iulia Popa-Mateiu | Publications | ipopa@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Isaac Sanderson | Publications | isanderson@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Alex Ritter | Publications | rittera@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Michael Virgato | Publications | mvirgato@student.unimelb.edu.au |
MSc students
Tim Martonhelyi | tmartonhelyi@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Will McDonald | mcdonaldw@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Alexei Sopov | sopova@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Joshua Wood | jwood5@student.unimelb.edu.au |
Alumni
Students
Stephen Lonsdale | PhD 2018 | Postdoc at IBS Korea |
Rebecca Leane | PhD 2017 | Postdocs at MIT, SLAC |
Amelia Brennan | PhD 2017 | Data analyst |
Jackson Clarke | PhD 2016 | Industry |
Peter Cox | PhD 2016 | Postdocs at IPMU Tokyo, U. Melbourne |
Iason Baldes | PhD 2015 | Postdocs at DESY, U. Brussels |
Ben Callen | PhD 2014 | Data scientist |
Nadine Pesor | PhD 2014 | Quantitative analyst |
Ahmad Galea | PhD 2013 | Postdoc at U. Oslo |
Jayne Thompson | PhD 2012 | Postdoc at Nat. U. Singapore |
Thomas Jacques | PhD 2011 | Postdocs at Arizona State, U. Geneva, SISSA |
Damien George | PhD 2009 | Postdocs at NIKHEF, U. Cambridge |
Sandy Law | PhD 2009 | Postdocs at Chung Yuan Christian U., Nat. Cheng Kung U. |
Alison Demaria | PhD 2007 | Industry |
Postdocs
Giorgio Busoni | 2015 — 2018 | Postdoc at MPI Heidelberg |
Tyler Corbett | 2015 — 2018 | Postdoc at Niels Bohr Institute |
Zhao-Huan Yu | 2015 — 2018 | Faculty at Sun Yat-sen U. |
Yi Cai | 2012 — 2017 | Faculty at Sun Yat-sen U. |
James Barnard | 2012 — 2016 | Data scientist |
Andrew Spray | 2012 — 2015 | Postdoc at IBS Korea |
Anibal Medina | 2012 — 2015 | Postdoc at IPhT Saclay; Faculty at La Plata U. |
Tirtha Sankar Ray | 2012 — 2014 | Faculty at IIT Kharagpur |
Michael Schmidt | 2010 — 2014 | Lecturer at U. Sydney; Faculty at UNSW |
Donatello Dolce | 2010 — 2012 | Lecturer at U. Camerino |
Kalliopi Petraki | 2009 — 2012 | Postdoc at NIKHEF; Faculty at LPTHE |
Benedict von Harling | 2008 — 2012 | Postdocs at SISSA, DESY, IFAE Barcelona |
Archil Kobakhidze | 2007 — 2012 | Faculty at U. Sydney |
Nicholas Setzer | 2008 — 2011 | Postdoc at U. Granada |
Shrihari Gopalakrishna | 2010 | Faculty at IMSc Chennai |
Upcoming
- Tongyan Lin (UCSD)11am March 3, 2021: Dark matter scattering in dielectrics
- Joshua Eby (Kavli IPMU)3:30pm March 17, 2021: TBA
- Konstantin Springmann (TUM)4:00pm April 21, 2021: TBA
Past
- Ariel Rock (Wisconsin–Madison)1.15pm December 9, 2020: Unconventional Taste: Flavor via Unexpected Origins
- Clara Hormigos-Feliu (TU Dortmund)5pm November 25, 2020: Asymptotically safe models with Higgs and flavor portals
Organisers:
Innes Bigaran (i.bigaran@student.unimelb.edu.au)
Peter Cox (peter.cox@unimelb.edu.au)