Tulegen Abdisagievich Kozhamkulov
(born April 29, 1946) — an outstanding scientist and theoretical physicist, founder of the Research Institute of Experimental and Theoretical Physics (RIETP) and the Kazakhstan Physical Society, one of the leading experts in quantum field theory, relativity and gravitation, nuclear physics, and elementary particle physics.

He pioneered a new scientific direction: stochastic quantization of gauge fields on a lattice. He developed a new type of perturbation theory against the background of a stochastic field and was the first to computationally demonstrate the phenomenon of confinement in lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD). He derived a covariant stochastic equation in curved field space and formulated stochastic equations for various lattice gauge fields. He also obtained higher-order stochastic difference equations in field theory, generalizing the approach of G. Parisi and Y. Wu.

Professor Kozhamkulov is the author of more than 300 scientific works, including research articles, books, and textbooks aimed at developing and promoting a modern scientific worldview. He developed advanced university-level courses such as Quantum Chromodynamics and Lattice Gauge Theories, and authored the first quantum mechanics textbook in the Kazakh language (Кванттық механика).
His scientific school has gained international recognition, with students and followers working in research centers in Russia, the USA, Austria, France, Israel, the UK, Italy, Japan, and other countries.

His exceptional abilities were evident as early as school years — at the age of 13, he was selected to attend the prestigious All-Union Pioneer Camp “Artek” and was awarded the Artek Festival Gold Medal.

At 16, he enrolled in the Physics Faculty of S.M. Kirov Kazakh State University (now Al-Farabi Kazakh National University). A recipient of the Lenin Scholarship, he actively pursued science, sports, and music. He published his first scientific papers as a student and graduated with honors in 1967 after defending a thesis titled “On Various Forms of the Pseudotensor of the Energy-Momentum of the Gravitational Field.”

At the age of 21, he was admitted directly into postgraduate studies at the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad (now part of the Russian Academy of Sciences), bypassing the traditional preliminary research internship — a unique case in the institute’s history. He remains the only Kazakhstani to have fully passed the rigorous theoretical physics course exam by L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz.

His Candidate of Sciences (PhD equivalent) dissertation focused on “Effective Interaction of Particles in the Atomic Nucleus”, supervised by Professor L.A. Sliv, head of the nuclear theory division at the Ioffe Institute.

Annual scientific schools at the B.P. Konstantinov Institute of Nuclear Physics and seminars at the L.D. Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics played a crucial role in shaping him as a theoretical physicist. He undertook a prestigious research internship under Academician A.B. Migdal, a student of Nobel laureate L.D. Landau, and became the only Kazakhstani accepted into this elite international community of theoretical physicists.

In 1986, he became the first in the USSR to defend a doctoral dissertation on lattice gauge theories, titled “Stochastic Quantization of Gauge Fields on a Lattice”, at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (Kyiv). In 1989, he was awarded the academic title of Professor by the USSR Higher Attestation Commission.

From 1970 to 2008, at Kazakh State University, he progressed through all academic ranks: assistant, senior lecturer, associate professor, professor, head of the Department of Theoretical Physics, dean of the Physics Faculty, and eventually Rector.

He established Kazakhstan’s first university-based research institute, the Research Institute of Experimental and Theoretical Physics (RIETP) at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, becoming its founding director. This “brainchild” of the academician remains the central focus of his scientific life. Regardless of his positions, his connection with the institute has remained constant, and he continues to serve as its Scientific Director to this day.

In 2015, under his leadership, a group of scientists from RIETP — representing three generations of physicists — were awarded the Al-Farabi State Prize in Science and Technology of the Republic of Kazakhstan for their fundamental research of international significance.

As Rector of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (July 2001 – April 2008), he elevated the university to an internationally competitive level.

With the support of the First President of Kazakhstan, Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev, he initiated and launched the second phase of KazGUgrad construction in 2004 — a pivotal event in the university’s development.

Since April 2008, he has served as Advisor to the Rector and Scientific Director of RIETP. In April 2017, he became the Founder and President of the Kazakhstan Physical Society.

By Presidential Decree, Professor Kozhamkulov was awarded the honorary title “Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the Republic of Kazakhstan” (1996), and the 2015 Al-Farabi State Prize. He is a Knight of the “Parasat” Order (2004) and the “Barys” Order, II degree (2014). He has also received numerous medals from Kazakhstan and abroad for his contributions to science, education, culture, and sports.

He is an Honorary Citizen of Almaty Region (2001), Zhambyl District (2006), the city of Taldykorgan (2016), and Tucson, Arizona, USA (2007). He also holds honorary professorships from multiple domestic and international universities.