Anshul Kogar, an associate professor of physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has been named a recipient of the 2026 National Brown Investigator Award. Kogar will receive up to $2 million over five years to advance his exploration of quantum materials.
Announced by the California Institute of Technology, the fellowship recognizes tenured mid-career faculty driving curiosity-led, foundational research in the physical sciences.
The award program, managed through the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech, was established by a $400 million financial gift from entrepreneur and Caltech alumnus Ross M. Brown. It aims to provide stable, long-term funding to researchers at a pivotal point in their careers, giving them the freedom to focus entirely on complex, riskier scientific questions without short-term constraints.
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Kogar’s selection spotlights his deep expertise in experimental condensed matter physics. His research aims to answer a fundamental question regarding unconventional, high-temperature superconductors, where exactly is the Coulomb energy saved when a material transitions from a standard metallic state to an exotic superconducting phase.
By understanding how electrons interact during this evolution, Kogar’s work addresses longstanding debates about how solids save energy.
Kogar’s global journey reflects an early exposure to international scientific concepts. Before moving to the United States 14 years ago, he attended high school in Bangkok, Thailand, where an instructor’s lesson on the electron two-slit experiment first sparked his lifelong fascination with physics.
He built his foundational expertise within top-tier U.S. institutions, arriving first at UCLA to earn his bachelor’s degree in physics. He then completed a doctoral degree in condensed matter physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
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During his PhD work, Kogar collaborated on developing momentum-resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy, a highly specialized tool that provided early evidence for a rare state of quantum matter known as exciton condensation.
He later completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, using intense, ultrafast light pulses to manipulate atomic structures, before returning to UCLA as a faculty member in 2019.
At UCLA, Kogar’s laboratory utilizes ultrafast electron diffraction and time-resolved second harmonic generation to discover and control quantum phases.
The stable financial support from the Brown Investigator Award will allow his team to expand their exploration of strongly correlated electron systems.
Caltech named a total of eight mid-career scientists from institutions across the country to the 2026 cohort, spanning foundational disciplines in chemistry and physics.