A symposium honors the physicist whose unexpected discovery helped open a new field of science: twistronics
Rutgers physicist Eva Andrei was looking for something else when she discovered a new way to change how materials conduct electricity.
At an Oct. 6 symposium at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, Andrei shared the story behind the research that earned her the 2026 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. Students, colleagues, university leaders and family members gathered to celebrate Rutgers’ first faculty recipient of the honor.
“We were actually looking for something totally different,” said Andrei, a Rutgers alumna, in a speech to the audience.
Her team expected to examine a single sheet of graphene, a form of carbon that is one atom thick. Instead, a sample prepared with help from collaborators contained overlapping layers rotated at different angles. By examining different parts of it, the researchers found that small changes in angle could sharply alter its electrical properties.
The discovery helped establish twistronics, a field in which scientists use tiny twists between ultrathin layers to control a material’s behavior. Speakers described its potential to contribute to faster computing, more precise medical imaging and more efficient energy use.
Andrei shared the nanoscience prize with physicists Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Allan H. MacDonald of the University of Texas at Austin. The Kavli prizes recognize major advances in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience.
State Sen. Andrew Zwicker, a physicist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, presented a joint resolution of the New Jersey Senate and General Assembly honoring Andrei.
“The fact that she trusted the science when she was going into an area that no one had ever discovered before but knew that her experiments and her calculations were correct, is truly what the scientific enterprise is all about,” he said.
Zwicker described the resolution as the highest honor the legislature could bestow on a New Jerseyan.
“Professor Andrei is a Rutgers story,” he said. “She’s also a New Jersey story.”
Keena Arbuthnot, Rutgers’ executive vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer, spoke on behalf of President William F. Tate IV. She connected Andrei’s persistence to the “Rutgers Edge,” Tate’s call for the university community to challenge conventional thinking and pursue work with broad impact.
“There is no better illustration of the Rutgers Edge than Professor Andrei’s work and career,” Arbuthnot said. “She sees possibilities where others may see limits.”
Andrei earned her doctorate at Rutgers in 1982 and returned to join the faculty in 1987. Now a Board of Governors Professor in the School of Arts and Sciences, she has helped generations of students develop their own research careers.
“Rutgers helped to nurture her talent, and in turn, she has spent her career nurturing talent in others,” Arbuthnot said.
For Rutgers University-New Brunswick Chancellor Francine Conway, the evening recalled another celebration. She traveled to Norway last month to attend Andrei’s lecture and the Kavli Prize ceremony.
“I watched you receive this extraordinary honor, and being there in person was one of the great joys of my chancellorship,” Conway said.
The trip also brought Conway together with Andrei’s husband, Natan, a Distinguished Professor of physics at Rutgers, and Eva and Natan Andrei’s daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren.
“Breakthroughs may be associated with a single name or a single moment, but they are sustained by the support of communities and families,” Conway said.
Andrei’s own account included photographs from a boat tour through the Oslo archipelago, with Conway chatting with Andrei’s daughter, Talia. She recalled the prize ceremony’s break dancing and musicians, and the pleasure of getting to know scientists honored in other fields.
“We were a bunch of 10 scientists, and we had a blast of a time together,” she said.
The New Brunswick symposium, titled “From Fundamental Nanoscience to Transforming Lives,” was the 25th Henry R. and Gladys V. Irons Public Lecture in Physics and Astronomy.
Joining the celebration were Julia Graham and her children, Heather and Brendan, whose family’s connection to the lecture series stretches back nearly three decades.
Graham’s father, Henry Irons, a Rutgers engineering alumnus, established the endowment in 1998.
Jack Hughes, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, which presented the event, explained the purpose behind Irons’ gift.
“An electrical engineer by training, Henry Irons appreciated fundamental physics and the importance of scientific literacy in the general public,” Hughes said.
Before the program, Graham recalled a childhood of outings to public lectures and a father whose fascination with science extended well beyond his profession. He saved stacks of scientific magazines to consult again.
“It’s so nice to know that this has continued all this time,” she said.
The scientific program explored how curiosity can lead to technologies that change lives. Piers Coleman, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy who led the session, connected Andrei’s discoveries with the work of the other invited speakers, Naomi J. Halas of Rice University and Yael Hanein of Tel Aviv University.
“Eva Andrei, she twists quantum matter,” Coleman said. “Naomi Halas persuades light to behave differently and Yael Hanein can be said to talk to neurons.”
Halas described to the symposium audience how she used tiny metal particles to capture light and drive chemical reactions, an approach that could reduce the fossil fuels needed to manufacture chemicals and fuels.
A look at what drives Eva Andrei in her research, produced by the Kavli Foundation
In her presentation, Hanein explained how she developed devices that connect electronics with the nervous system, including wearable sensors that detect electrical signals from muscles and technologies aimed at helping people with impaired vision.
In thanking the people behind her research, Andrei showed photographs of students, postdoctoral researchers and collaborators who had passed through her laboratory.
“It is not just my prize,” she said. “It is the prize of everybody who contributed to my lab.”
She thanked Rutgers for its support and, acknowledging budget pressures, urged continued investment in research. When a student asked for advice about beginning a scientific career, she returned to the lesson of her unexpected discovery.
“My best work came from looking for one thing and finding another,” Andrei said. “So don’t fear failure and pay attention to what doesn’t go as planned.”
“Sometimes the detour is the discovery,” she added
Explore more of the ways Rutgers research is shaping the future.