Bernadette K. Cogswell is a theoretical particle physicist specializing in neutrinos, phenomenology, and nuclear non-proliferation. She received her Ph.D. in physics from Vanderbilt University and has a B.S. in Psychology and an M.A. in English. After her Ph.D., she completed a two-year post-doc at Princeton University with the Program for Science and Global Security, then received a Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellowship to the University of Manchester UK where she continued her work in neutrino phenomenology. Upon returning to the US, Bernadette worked for four years as a Research Scientist with the Center for Neutrino Physics at Virginia Tech on nuclear non-proliferation and novel neutrino detector opportunities. Her work has been successfully bridging policy and science. At present, she is a full-time physics instructor with a special apprenticeship program at Pearl Harbor Naval base in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Research Interests
Nuclear weapons are inherently technical but, are at heart, a social problem. They touch on value systems and fundamental beliefs about power and security that are personal, not scientific. Advancing towards a world safe from nuclear threat will need cross-disciplinary research teams made up of social and physical scientists along with great communicators and visualizers. My research, policy, and outreach efforts focus on fostering this cross-team approach and perspective to understand and improve nuclear threat reduction initiatives such as nuclear monitoring and nuclear policy reforms.
Publications
B. K. Cogswell and P. Huber, Cerium Ruthenium Low-energy Antineutrino Measurements for Safeguarding Military Naval Reactors, Physical Review Letters, 128, June 2022.
B. K. Cogswell, A. Goel, and P. Huber, Passive Low-Energy Nuclear-Recoil Detection with Color Centers, Physical Review Applied, 16, 2021.
B. K. Cogswell, N. Siahaan, F. Siera, M. V. Ramana, and R. Tanter, Prospects and Challenges of Nuclear Power and Small Modular Reactors in Indonesia, NAPSNet Special Reports, April 27, 2017.
B. K. Cogswell and P. Huber, Detection of Breeding Blankets Using Antineutrinos, Science & Global Security, 24, 2016.