Elisabetta Barberio is the Thomas H. Laby Professor of Physics in the School of Physics, Faculty of Science, at the University of Melbourne. She holds a PhD from the University of Siegen, Germany. Currently, she serves as Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics, overseeing a national research collaboration focused on fundamental questions about dark matter. As a member of the Experimental Particle Physics Group, her research specializations include high energy physics, dark matter direct detection, and experiments at particle colliders.

Barberio previously worked as a staff researcher at CERN, contributing to data analysis for the OPAL experiment at the Large Electron-Positron Collider, where precision measurements confirmed aspects of the standard model describing fundamental particle behavior. She played a key role in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, aiding the discovery of the Higgs boson. Her research has facilitated seminal work recognized in the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Kobayashi and Maskawa, and the 2013 Nobel Prize to Englert and Higgs. In 2014, she initiated Australia's dark matter direct detection program, leading to the development of the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL), located one kilometre underground in the Stawell Gold Mine, Victoria—the first such facility in the Southern Hemisphere. SUPL hosts the SABRE South experiment under her leadership. In 2024, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Italy's highest-ranking honour, for her contributions to experimental particle physics. She leads the Research Committee of the ARC Centre and has an impressive record of publications in the field.

Professional Email: barberio@unimelb.edu.au