Cindy Regal in her lab
Cindy Regal, University of Colorado Boulder Physics Professor and Baur-SPIE Chair at JILA, has been named a 2025 Brown Investigator by the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech.
The Brown Institute for Basic Sciences was established in 2023 through a transformative $400 million gift from Caltech alumnus Ross M. Brown. The institute supports fundamental research with the potential to seed long-term breakthroughs in chemistry and physics.
"Mid-career faculty are at a time in their careers when they are poised and prepared to make profound contributions to their fields," Brown says, "My continuing hope is that the resources provided by the Brown Investigator Awards will allow them to pursue riskier innovative ideas that extend beyond their existing research efforts and align with new or developing passions, especially during this time of funding uncertainty."
Regal is one of eight recipients selected this year, and she will receive up to $2 million over five years to support her groundbreaking work in quantum physics.
She aims to use the research support to demonstrate quantum entanglement—a connection between particles like photons or atoms that persists despite their physical distance—with objects of larger mass than have been entangled before.
Regal said the Brown Investigator Award is a thrilling opportunity for her research group. “The Brown Institute’s focus on fundamental and risky studies will allow us to explore quantum mechanical phenomena in a regime that is enticing to physicists and for future impact, yet also exceedingly difficult to achieve in the laboratory,” she said, adding:
“We are keen to try a new concept in precision optical measurement and control that we hypothesize will generate quantum states in ever-larger and more tangible mechanical excitations. These explorations would not be possible to embark on without the unique resources provided to Brown Investigators.”
Regal joins a distinguished cohort of scientists from institutions including Princeton, Cornell, and the University of Chicago. Her selection underscores JILA’s continued leadership in quantum science and its commitment to advancing knowledge at the frontiers of physics.
Written by Steven Burrows, JILA Science Communications Manager
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. PFCs also include creative, substantive activities aimed at enhancing education, broadening participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and outreach to the scientific community and general public.