Laboratory for Laser Energetics

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer announced a three-part plan to protect and expand the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) during his visit to the LLE on Monday, March 5. The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget, announced last month, proposed significant cuts to the lab and a “three-year ramp-down” in federal support. During his visit, Schumer praised the LLE for creating jobs and advancing scientific research in physics, optics, and photonics. “The Laser Lab is vital not only to Rochester but to the United States and our national security,” Schumer said. “Turning out the lights on the Laser Lab is a horrible idea, and I promise you, it will not happen under my watch.” (University of Rochester photo / J. Adam Fenster)

The universe is filled with magnetic fields, but how it got that way has long been a mystery. To explain the magnetization of the universe, scientists proposed the existence of a “turbulent dynamo.” The phenomenon had never before been measured or observed directly—until recently.

Two local high school seniors have been named scholars in the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search for summer research projects they worked on at the University's Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

The non-profit organization Fusion Power Associates awarded its Distinguished Career Award to recently retired director Robert McCrory, as well as other awards to the Laboratory for Laser Energetics at their annual meeting.

Professor Robert L. McCrory, a physicist and scientific leader who has shepherded the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics to international prominence during the past 35 years, will retire from the directorship on October 1.

Institutions including Cornell, Michigan, Princeton, and Stanford will join Rochester in developing an instrument to produce and study matter that exists under pressures far higher than either on or inside Earth.

Gilbert “Rip” Collins, formerly of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will lead a multidisciplinary initiative in Rochester to study how atoms behave at extreme pressures.

His seminal contributions to the field helped attract graduate students to the Laboratory for Laser Energetics. He died February 5, 2017, at age 92.

Two local teens have earned recognition in the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search (formerly the Intel Science Talent Search) for research projects they carried out last summer at the University's Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz (right), joined by Senator Charles Schumer, made his first visit to the Laboratory for Laser Energetics yesterday. Moniz and Schumer met with researchers and toured the facility, which is seen as a driver for regional innovation and growth.