Brian Anderson

Dr. Brian Anderson is the Dean of the Wyant College of Optical Sciences. Dr. Anderson has been actively involved in graduate-level teaching and research since joining the Optical Sciences faculty in 2001. He served as the college’s Associate Dean for Graduate Academic Affairs from 2019 to 2025, where he led impactful growth and development of the college’s graduate programs and guided, advised, and mentored hundreds of MS and PhD students.   

Dr. Anderson’s scientific research centers on the physics of Bose-Einstein condensates, the coldest substances in the known universe, which can only be created and experimentally studied in state-of-the-art optics laboratories. For over 25 years, his internationally recognized experimental and theoretical work in this field has concentrated on how these substances both act as a fluid and adhere to the laws of quantum mechanics that are evident at such cold temperatures. Dr. Anderson’s widely cited research has appeared in such journals as Science, Nature, and Physical Review Letters. His research has been supported through multiple government grants and has helped provide insights into complex physical phenomena such as superfluidity and turbulence. As an educator, Dr. Anderson has taught graduate-level quantum mechanics courses for over 20 years and is the author of the Field Guide to Quantum Mechanics.   

Admin

Carol Altizer
caltizer@arizona.edu