What Discovery Makes Possible

Professor Eva Andrei has become the first Rutgers faculty member to receive the Kavli Prize, one of the world’s highest scientific honors. Chancellor Conway reflects on her groundbreaking research, the discoveries it made possible, and why sustained investment in research matters.

This week in Oslo, Norway, I had the privilege of celebrating a remarkable moment for Rutgers University.

Professor Eva Andrei, Board of Governors Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers–New Brunswick, received the 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience, becoming the first Rutgers faculty member to earn one of the world’s most prestigious scientific honors.

Professor Andrei shared the prize with Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Allan MacDonald of the University of Texas at Austin for foundational work that established the field of twistronics.

At its core, twistronics is based on the idea that when incredibly thin layers of material are stacked and slightly twisted, they can behave in entirely new ways. That discovery opened a new approach to studying and designing materials at the smallest scales, with potential implications for faster computing, highly sensitive medical imaging, and more energy-efficient technologies.

For Professor Andrei, that journey has deep roots at Rutgers. She earned her Ph.D. from Rutgers in 1982 and went on to build her career at the university. Long before twistronics had a name, Professor Andrei and her research group were studying graphene, an extremely thin form of carbon just one atom thick, and asking what happens when layers of it are placed together in different ways.

Their work helped change how scientists think about materials. Instead of changing what a material is made of, researchers discovered they could change how it behaves simply by adjusting the angle between its layers.

What stands out to me about Professor Andrei’s story is how long she stayed with the questions that interested her. The path was not always obvious, and the significance of the work was not clear from the start. But she kept going, and that work ultimately helped open a new field.

That made this week in Oslo feel especially meaningful. The Kavli celebrations took place during a period of national mourning following the death of King Harald V, who had a longstanding connection to the prize and had personally presented it to past laureates.

In her Kavli Prize Laureate Lecture, Professor Andrei walked through the path from her early work with graphene to the discoveries that helped establish twistronics. At the award ceremony, seeing her honored alongside scientists from around the world made the scale of that journey especially clear.

Work like Professor Andrei’s takes time. It also takes colleagues who challenge ideas, students who learn and contribute along the way, and a university willing to support research before anyone knows exactly where it will lead.

The possibilities can extend far beyond the lab. Professor Andrei’s career shows what can happen when we create the conditions for that kind of discovery. Her Kavli Prize is an extraordinary personal achievement and a historic first for Rutgers. It is also a reminder that research conducted on our campuses can shape fields, inspire new questions, and have an impact worldwide.

It was an honor to be in Oslo to celebrate Professor Andrei and to see her work recognized on the world stage.

Congratulations, Professor Andrei, on this remarkable achievement.

Francine Conway
Chancellor, Rutgers University–New Brunswick