Tony Bell

Anthony Raymond Bell (born 9 June 1952) is a British physicist. He is a professor of physics at the University of Oxford and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He is a senior research fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.

Early life and education Anthony Raymond Bell was born on 9 June 1952 in Lincoln, England, to Raymond and Muriel Bell. He was educated at Leeds Modern School and Churchill College, Cambridge, where he studied natural sciences and later gained a PhD in radio astronomy in 1977 for research investigating supernova remnants.

Career and research Following his PhD, Bell worked on radar signal processing with Marconi Electronic Systems before moving to the Central Laser Facility as a laser-plasma theorist. He wrote one of four independent papers proposing the theory of cosmic ray acceleration by shocks. He showed how strong magnetic field is generated during particle acceleration and how it enables cosmic ray acceleration to high energy. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2017. In 2024, Bell was awarded the Royal Society's Rumford Medal.

Personal life Bell married Irene Barnett in 1975; they have two sons and one daughter. He is a local preacher in the Methodist Church of Great Britain and plays the piano.