The world's first Bose–Einstein condensate was created at JILA by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman in 1995.

JILA's members hold faculty appointments in the Departments of Physics; Astrophysical and Planetary Science; Chemistry and Biochemistry; and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology as well as Engineering.

JILA’s Quantum Physics Division of NIST members hold joint faculty appointments at CU in the same departments.

Research at JILA addresses fundamental scientific questions about the limits of quantum measurements and technologies, the design of precision optical and X-ray lasers, the fundamental principles underlying the interaction of light and matter, the role of quantum physics in chemistry and biology, and the processes that have governed the evolution of the Universe for nearly 14 billion years.

[4] Each year, JILA scientists publish more than 200 original research papers in national and international scientific journals and conference proceedings.