U-M Physicist Lu Li Receives Prestigious 2026 National Brown Investigator Award

University of Michigan physics professor Lu Li is among eight distinguished scientists nationwide named to the 2026 class of Brown Investigators. Announced today by the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech, the award provides Li with up to $2 million over five years to advance his work on fundamental challenges in the physical sciences. Li’s selection as part of this elite third cohort highlights the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences' commitment to those with potential for long-term practical applications in chemistry and physics.

Physicist Lu Li will use the Investigator Award to develop new methods for thermal transport and resonance measurements in high magnetic fields to probe the electronic states of insulators. Magnetic fields generally turn the direction of moving electrons, with a well-known example in Michigan: the aurora, where Earth’s magnetic field acts on charged particles from the Sun. Lu’s proposed experiments will further determine whether, in some special insulators, the magnetic field may act directly on charge-less particles.  

“It is such an honor to be part of the Brown Investigator Award. With this support, I am more confident that the proposed experiments will work. The success will open a new field in solid insulators. Given the rapid technological development in semiconductors and metals, I am sure society will see progress from this new research on insulators.”

Joining Professor Li as 2026 investigators are:
Jillian Dempsey, professor of chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Naomi Ginsberg, professor of chemistry and physics, UC Berkeley
Julia Kalow, associate professor of chemistry, Northwestern University
Rebekka Klausen, professor of chemistry, Johns Hopkins University
Anshul Kogar, associate professor of physics, UCLA
Kang-Kuen Ni, T. W. Richards Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics, Harvard University
David Weld, professor of physics, UCSB

"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, giving them time to focus and develop their line of thinking," says entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Caltech alumnus Ross M. Brown (BS '56, MS '57), who established the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech in 2023 through a $400-million gift to the Institute.

Brown established the Investigator Awards in 2020 through the Brown Science Foundation in support of the belief that scientific discovery is a driving force in the improvement of the human condition. The Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech seeks to advance fundamental science discoveries with the potential to seed breakthroughs that benefit society.

"We share Ross's enthusiasm for supporting outstanding mid-career investigators in chemistry and physics," says Caltech Provost David A. Tirrell, Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair and Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. "The first three years of our partnership have exceeded our expectations, and we look forward to working with Ross, the Scientific Advisory Board, and the Brown Investigators to continue to advance fundamental science across the nation."

Including this year's cohort, a total of 37 investigators have been named to date; 24 have been installed over the past three years under the auspices of the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech.

Previous awardees include Hailiang Wang of Yale University, who is working on new methods to convert inorganic waste molecules, such as CO₂ and NO_x, into valuable organic compounds; Kerri A. Pratt of the University of Michigan, for research to discover the chemical compounds and chemical mechanisms in the Arctic's rapidly warming atmosphere; and Robert Knowles of Princeton University, to explore a novel hypothesis for the evolution of homochirality—the presence in nature of only one of two mirror-image forms of biomolecules.

Brown Investigators from all cohorts are invited to an annual meeting that offers opportunities to share ideas. The third annual meeting was held at Caltech in February 2026.

To determine the new cohort, 24 research universities from across the country were invited to nominate faculty members who had earned tenure within the last 10 years and who are doing innovative fundamental research in the physical sciences. Nominees were then evaluated by an independent scientific review board that recommended grant winners. In administering the program, Caltech refrains from nominating its own scientists for Brown Investigator Awards. In return, the Institute draws other funds from the Brown gift to support fundamental research in chemistry and physics.

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