Notable Achievements
The University of Rochester's first 150 years.

(University Public Relations)

The Institute of Optics

In a recent study of 233 research and doctoral institutions, Rochester, Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are the only institutions consistently within the top ten listings of institutions whose undergraduates go on to earn doctorates in the humanities, doctorates in the sciences and engineering, and doctorates in both categories combined.

•Rochester chemists have developed a faster and less expensive way to copy DNA, by forming one long spool of DNA and then using enzymes to cleave the spool into many copies of the target sequence.

•Rochester political scientists were the first to use game theory and social choice theory to show how legislatures actually work.

•Rochester physicists developed equations that describe radioactive decay, also know as the "weak interaction," one of four fundamental forces in the universe. The research helped lay the groundwork for the "standard model" of matter put forth by physicists, as well as the unification of the weak force and electromagnetism.

•The roots of most commercial Unix systems lie in the Rochester Intelligent Gateway (RIG), a research project undertaken by Rochester computer scientists in the 1970s.

•Researchers first demonstrated the connection between the mind and the body, proving in a classic series of experiments the links between the brain and the immune system. The finding led to the establishment of a new field of study, psychoneuroimmunology.

•Engineers developed "smart fluids" that change viscosity depending on the strength of the magnetic field that scientists apply to them. These "magnetorheological" fluids are being used to grind lenses and other optical components in a completely new way.

•The world's premier conference in high energy physics, the Rochester Conference, was first held at the University in 1950. Now it is held in a different city every other year, but wherever it's held, it's still known as the "Rochester Conference."

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