What does the oxygen we breathe, the calcium in our bones, and the gold leaf on the Golden Dome all have in common? They are all chemical elements that have originated from stars.
Khushi Bhatt, a Provost’s Postdoctoral Society of Science Fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is affiliated with the Institute for Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics (ISNAP) and works in the lab of Associate Professor Anna Simon-Robertson. The team is researching how chemical elements are synthesized in explosive stellar environments.
As an experimental nuclear astrophysicist, Bhatt bridges nuclear physics and astrophysics to recreate tiny pieces of stellar processes in the laboratory using particle accelerators.
“You can take an atomic nucleus of whatever [element] you want to study. Then you take a proton or an alpha particle and accelerate it into another atomic nucleus to see what it will produce,” she said. “We try to do this in the energy range through which some specific stars would be producing it.”
Bhatt was raised in Gujarat, India, and moved to the United States after completing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics in India. She earned her doctoral degree at Western Michigan University, where her work focused on understanding the stellar production of the heaviest known protein rich nucleus, ¹⁹⁶Hg. There are around 35 known p-nuclei, and the astrophysical production of these p-nuclei is not completely understood yet. Bhatt’s thesis experiment aimed at measuring the probability of capturing a proton onto the heaviest known p-nucleus.
She then completed a postdoctoral position in the physics division at Argonne National Laboratory, where she worked on two separate projects.
Bhatt was selected in 2024 to attend the 73rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, focused on physics, which brought together 650 young scientists with former Nobel Prize winners from around the world. She was also one of 18 participants for the Baden-Württemberg Post Conference Programme after the Lindau meeting, which allowed her to present her work at the different institutes across Germany.
Bhatt’s current research focuses on measuring the probability of capturing a proton onto an atomic nucleus of a chemical element called zirconium and the production of niobium 94 or 95, depending on the energy range she works with.
She credits the Society of Science Fellow Program which provides a wonderful platform to learn to be an independent researcher by training in various important skills like grantsmanship, communication, and advance lab management skills, along with gaining teaching training and experience.
She’s already made a name for herself at Notre Dame by placing second in the College of Science Postdoc Lightning Talk Competition. In the final round of the Notre Dame Postdoc Spotlight, a university-wide competition between College of Science, College of Engineering and College of Arts and Letters, Bhatt also won the Community Choice Award for Excellence in Research Communication.
In her free time, she enjoys playing the ukulele and making origami models. She’s also classically trained in an Indian classical dance form called Bharatnatyam.