Penn physicists Charles Kane and Eugene Mele of SAS have been awarded the 11th Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Basic Sciences category “for their discovery of topological insulators, a new class of materials with extraordinary electronic properties—they behave as conductors on the surface, but as insulators in the interior,” the selection committee stated.

Drs. Kane and Mele were also awarded the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (Almanac October 23, 2018).

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards recognizes and rewards contributions of singular impact in science, art and the humanities. Drs. Kane and Mele will split the award’s €400,000 prize that will be presented at a formal ceremony in Bilbao, Spain, on June 18.