UT Physicist Wins International Frontiers of Knowledge Award
- Feb 12, 2026
[Editor's Note: This story is part of a Texas Global series celebrating UT Austin faculty members whose work has received international honors or awards.]
Allan H. MacDonald, a University of Texas at Austin physicist, has won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in basic sciences for his work that has enabled scientists to transform and control extraordinary phenomena linked to new materials.
The UT Austin physicist was one of two scientists to win the international prize in the category of basic sciences. The other was experimental scientist Pablo Jarillo-Herrero at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The BBVA Foundation press announcement credits the pair with driving a whole new field, known as twistronics, where superconductivity, magnetism and other target properties result from rotating ultrathin layers of new materials such as graphene. Their findings have inspired scientists to leverage the discovery for a wide range of transformative applications — from much more sustainable and efficient electricity transmission to new electronic devices to quantum computing technologies.
The award, which is organized in partnership with Spain’s leading public research organization, recognizes contributions of singular impact across various fields, promoting the value of knowledge as a global public good, the best tool at our command to confront the defining challenges of our time and expand individual worldviews.
MacDonald is the first UT Austin faculty member to win a Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the basic sciences category. (In 2025, College of Natural Sciences alum and ecologist Camille Parmesan won a Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category for climate change and environmental sciences.)
A native of Nova Scotia, Canada, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, MacDonald previously won the Wolf Prize in physics. His 1,000 physics publications have more than 110,000 citations, and he holds three patents and UT’s Sid W. Richardson Chair in Physics.
