Ooguri aims at discovering mathematical structures in these theories and exploiting them to invent new theoretical tools to solve fundamental questions in physics.

[3] Finishing his graduate study in two years, Ooguri became a tenured faculty member at the University of Tokyo in 1986.

He was a member the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and was appointed an assistant professor at the University of Chicago before receiving his Ph.D. in 1989.

He moved California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2000, where he is the inaugural holder of the Fred Kavli Chair.

He also supervised a science movie, which was selected for the Best Educational Production Award from the International Planetarium Society.