Dr. Nicholas Fell

Dr. Fell is currently the Portfolio Manager for the Fires and Agile Sustainment and Ammo portfolios for DEVCOM ARL in the G5 Research Integration Office of the Research Business Directorate. Dr. Fell served the same role in the Army Research Directorate of DEVCOM ARL before an organizational reorganization in October 2025. In both roles, he was responsible to coordinating the technical work in the research Divisions, coordinated with the Future Capability Directorates of FCC, the PMEs with the PAE structures, and DASA(R&T) to ensure that DEVCOM ARL's programs are well aligned with Army goal and fulfilling Army technical gaps. He also works with the research Divisions to plan and build new programs and POM submissions. He has also served as the Acting Associate Director for Technology for the Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate in DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory. Previous to serving in this role, he served as the Associate for Strategic Planning for Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate. In both of these roles, Dr. Fell has played a key role in establishing and maintaining SEDD's external connections, particularly with the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, the AFC CFTs and other SEDD stakeholders. Dr. Fell earned his BS in Chemistry at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993. He worked for Parke-Davis in the pharmaceutical industry from 1985-6. He was a National Research Council-Army Research Laboratory Post-doctoral fellow in the Weapons Technology Directorate (now Weapons & Materials Research Directorate) of ARL from 1994-6 and in the Sensors & Electron Devices Directorate (SEDD) from 1996-7. From 1997-9 he worked for the Physical Sciences Laboratory, New Mexico State University at ARL in the Computers and Information Sciences Directorate, Battlefield Environment Directorate. From 1999 until he was hired by ARL in 2000, he worked as an American Society for Engineering Education Post-doctoral Fellow in the Optics Branch of the Electro-Optics & Photonics Division (EO&P) of SEDD-ARL. He served as Acting Branch Chief of the Optics Branch of EO&P in 2004-5, as Associate Division Chief of EO&P from 2005-6, and was selected as Branch Chief of the Optics Branch from 2006-12. He served three months as the Acting Deputy Director of SEDD in the Fall of 2006. From May 2012 through Jun 2016, he served as a Visiting Scientist in the Department of Chemistry and Life Science and the Photonics Research Center at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, NY. During his tenure at USMA he taught several courses in the Chemistry Program and codeveloped a course with the Department of Mathematical Science on image understanding. His current research interests focus on Raman spectroscopy, energetic materials characterization and detection, chemical and biological threat detection. In particular, my most recent research investigates the use of UV Raman spectroscopy for explosives and energetic material detection on surfaces and the use of hyperspectral imaging to investigate various biological systems. Dr. Fell is the author or co-author of 11 refereed publications, 2 book chapters, 27 proceedings, and over 60 presentations.