Founded in 1908 as Agricultural School of Lavras, in 1938 it was named School of Agriculture of Lavras; it was federalized in 1963 and in 1994 it became Universidade Federal de Lavras - UFLA (Federal University of Lavras). Since then it is committed to provide and foster development and continuous expansion of services to society.

The Physics Departament was founded in 2014 and it currently has 25 full professors. Research includes differents areas of theoretical, experimental and computational physics and, in particular, research in theoretical aspects of particle physics and quantum field theory.