The Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) was founded in 1946 as the first of the Institute's great modern interdepartmental research centers. Today, it is one of MIT's largest, as well as the most diverse in intellectual interests.
RLE research is focused on six major themes:
Sixty principal investigators—of whom 50 are MIT faculty members—direct RLE's research projects. These faculty members are drawn from eight MIT departments and divisions: Biological Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Engineering Systems, Materials Science and Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.
More than 300 MIT graduate and undergraduate students—also drawn from these departments and divisions—make RLE one of the primary environments for student learning at MIT. In fact, it is the combination of forefront research with student participation across multiple academic disciplines that characterizes the RLE culture.
RLE's research efforts are supported by the most diverse sponsor base at MIT. Principal sponsors include the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, industry, and nonprofit foundations and organizations.
In addition, a significant share of RLE's activities is self-funded from gifts and from the discretionary resources of the laboratory and its principal investigators. Approximately a third of RLE's activities involves extramural collaborations with universities, institutions, and industry, making the laboratory one of MIT's principal points of connection with peer institutions, government, and the business world.
Nearly all RLE activities take place at MIT's main campus in Cambridge. Some also take place at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston.
For further information, contact the director, Professor Jeffrey H. Shapiro, Room 36-419, 617-253-4179.