UCLA Physicist Anshul Kogar Gets Caltech-Backed $2 Mln Brown Investigator Award
Photo: UCLA
India-West News Desk
LOS ANGELES, CA – Anshul Kogar, an associate professor of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been named one of eight recipients of the 2026 Brown Investigator awards, a prestigious research honor established by the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at California Institute of Technology.
The award provides up to $2 million over five years to support innovative mid-career scientists working on fundamental questions in the physical sciences with potential long-term applications in chemistry and physics.
Kogar was recognized for his research into one of the enduring mysteries of condensed matter physics: understanding where energy is conserved when materials transition from a metallic state into a superconducting state at relatively high temperatures.
High-temperature superconductors are materials capable of conducting electricity without resistance at temperatures far above those required for conventional superconductors. Scientists believe breakthroughs in the field could eventually transform energy transmission, computing, and advanced electronics.
At UCLA, Kogar leads a laboratory focused on discovering and controlling quantum phases of matter using ultrafast experimental techniques. His research employs ultrafast electron diffraction and time-resolved second harmonic generation, methods that allow scientists to observe and manipulate atomic and electronic behavior on extremely short timescales.
Kogar’s path into physics began long before his academic career in California. Before moving to the United States 14 years ago, he attended high school in Bangkok, Thailand, where a classroom lesson on the electron double-slit experiment sparked his fascination with quantum mechanics and the behavior of matter at microscopic scales.
He later earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from UCLA before completing a doctorate in condensed matter physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He then conducted postdoctoral research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he used intense ultrafast light pulses to manipulate atomic structures in quantum materials.
Kogar returned to UCLA as a faculty member in 2019 and has since built a research program exploring how light and electrons can be used to probe and control exotic material states.
The Brown Investigator program was established in 2023 through a $400 million gift from entrepreneur and philanthropist Ross M. Brown, a Caltech alumnus. According to the institute, the awards are intended to provide stable, long-term funding to researchers at a pivotal stage in their careers.
“My hope is that these awards will provide talented mid-career researchers with stable and secure funding at a moment of their career when they are poised to make a significant impact in their field,” Brown said in a statement released by Caltech.
The 2026 investigators were selected after 24 research universities across the United States nominated tenured faculty members engaged in innovative research in the physical sciences. An independent scientific review board evaluated the nominees and recommended the final recipients.
