Vidya Madhavan elected to National Academy of Sciences

Illinois Physics Professor and Department Head Vidya Madhavan has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a distinction that recognizes her outstanding contributions as a condensed matter experimentalist and her impact on the field of quantum materials.

Madhavan is widely regarded as a leading scientist in the field of quantum materials and as an innovator in the use of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy to probe their properties. Her group recently invented a new optical pump-probe ultrafast STM technique for the study of quantum materials. Her groundbreaking experiments have advanced fundamental understanding across a range of important systems, including topological crystalline insulators, quasi-2D dichalcogenides, the ruthenate Sr₂RuO₄, and the heavy fermion superconductor UTe₂. For example, in her research on the topological crystalline insulator PbSnₓSe₁₋ₓ, she uncovered how energy gaps form in the Dirac surface states, showing that they result from crystal distortions that break mirror symmetry.

Madhavan’s STM studies have also revealed the mechanism of incommensurability in the charge-density wave state of Cu-intercalated NbSe₂, demonstrating that domain wall formation drives this behavior and identifying an excess density of electronic states at those walls, suggesting a link to superconductivity. More recently, her experiments have provided strong evidence that the triplet superconductor UTe₂ is a topological superconductor.

Earlier in her career, Madhavan conducted the now-classic STM studies of gold surface states and the Kondo effect on metal surfaces. As a postdoctoral researcher, she revealed strong superconducting gap inhomogeneity in Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_8+δ and was involved in studies showing the “halo” of charge order within its vortices.

Madhavan was born in Madras (now Chennai), India. She earned her undergraduate degree in metallurgical engineering in 1991 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras; a master’s degree in solid state materials in 1993 from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi; and a Ph.D. in physics in 2000 from Boston University. She held a postdoctoral research appointment at University of California, Berkeley, prior to joining the faculty at Boston College in 2002. She came to the Illinois Physics faculty in 2014 as a full professor. Here, she established a state-of-the-art laboratory dedicated to STM studies of quantum materials.

Madhavan is a Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) Experimental Investigator and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

About the National Academy of Sciences

Established by President Lincoln in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences of the United States is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology. Scientists are elected by their peers to membership in the NAS for outstanding contributions to research. The NAS is committed to furthering science in the United States, and its members are active contributors to the international scientific community.

Membership is a widely accepted mark of excellence in science and is considered one of the highest honors that a scientist can receive. A total of 120 new members and 25 international members were elected this year in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Illinois Physics Professor Eduardo Fradkin contributed to this article.