Amy Nicholson

Amy Nicholson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She specializes in computational nuclear physics, focusing on solving Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) using lattice methods to understand low-energy properties of hadrons and nuclei. Her work connects theoretical models with experimental searches for new physics, including neutrinoless double-beta decay and dark matter detection.

Education: PhD in Physics from the University of Washington (2011). Postdoctoral research at the University of Maryland (Theoretical Quarks, Hadrons, and Nuclei group) and UC Berkeley (Nuclear Physics). Joined UNC-CH in 2017.

Research collaborations include the CalLat collaboration, the DOE Topical Collaboration on Double-Beta Decay, and the Flavour Lattice Averaging Group. She teaches advanced physics courses such as Phys 861 (Computational Nuclear Physics) and Phys 545. Nicholson has advised multiple graduate students and contributed to international summer schools on lattice QCD.

Her research leverages high-performance computing to explore extreme astrophysical environments and fundamental questions in particle physics, including the origins of matter asymmetry in the universe.