Brandeis University
Brandeis University (/ˈbrændaɪs/) is a private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. It is located within the Boston City Metropolitan Area. Founded in 1948 as a non-sectarian, coeducational institution with historic affiliation to judaism, Brandeis was established on the site of the former Middlesex University. The university is named after Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
For the University of Louisville law school, see Louis D. Brandeis School of Law.The university has been a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) since 1985. Brandeis is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity"[9] and is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.[10] In 2018, it had a total enrollment of 5,800 students on a campus of 235 acres (95 hectares).[5] The university has a liberal arts focus. Alumni and affiliates of the university include former first lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt, Nobel Prize laureate Roderick MacKinnon, Fields Medalist Edward Witten, and co-creators of the television show Friends David Crane and Marta Kauffman.
Academic rankings
83-99
121
60
161
109
301–400
661–670
251–300
409
Leslie Lamport (PhD, 1972) Turing Award-winning computer scientist and inventor of the first algorithm for reading the state of an arbitrary distributed system
Eve Marder (BA, 1965) recipient of the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience (2016) and National Medals of Science (2023).
Sidney Blumenthal (BA, 1969) Journalist and political operative known for his association with President Clinton
Among the better-known graduates are co-creators of the television show Friends David Crane and Marta Kauffman, political activists Abbie Hoffman and Angela Davis, journalists Thomas Friedman and Paul Solman, Congressman Stephen J. Solarz, physicist and Fields medalist Edward Witten, mathematician and Abel Prize recipient Karen Uhlenbeck, novelist Ha Jin, political theorist Michael Walzer, actresses Debra Messing and Loretta Devine, philosopher Michael Sandel, olympic silver medalist fencer Tim Morehouse, social and psychoanalytic theorist Nancy Chodorow, author Mitch Albom, filmmakers Debra Granik and Jonathan Newman, music producer Jon Landau,[121] and computer scientist Leslie Lamport.
Among the distinguished faculty, present and past, are mathematician Heisuke Hironaka, a Fields medalist, biologists and Nobel laureates Michael Rosbash and Jeffrey C. Hall, composers Arthur Berger, Leonard Bernstein, Martin Boykan, Eric Chasalow, Irving Fine, Donald Martino, David Rakowski, Harold Shapero, and Yehudi Wyner, social theorist Herbert Marcuse, psychologist Abraham Maslow, linguist James Pustejovsky, human rights activist Eleanor Roosevelt, Anita Hill, historian David Hackett Fischer, economist Thomas Sowell, chemist S Katharine Hammond, diplomat Dennis Ross, children's author Margret Rey, former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, sociologist Morrie Schwartz, poets Olga Broumas and Adrienne Rich, author Stephen McCauley, virologist and author of Fields Virology Bernard N. Fields and Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Eileen McNamara.
Research[edit]
Brandeis is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity".[132] In FY 2017, Brandeis spent $68.4 million on research and was ranked 174 in the nation by total R&D expenditure.[133][134] These include sponsored research funds from sources including the National Institutes of Health; the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services as well as a range of foundations.[135]
The university's Division of Science encompasses seven departments (Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology), five interdepartmental programs (Biochemistry & Biophysics, Biological Physics, Biotechnology, Genetic Counseling, Molecular & Cell Biology, and Neuroscience), six science centers (Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory, National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, Benjamin and Mae Volen National Center for Complex Systems, and W.M. Keck Institute for Cellular Visualization), and more than 50 laboratories[136] that investigate fundamental life processes ranging from the structure and function of individual macromolecules to the mechanisms that control the behavior of whole organisms.
Faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduates investigate areas such as neuronal development and plasticity, signal transduction, immunology, the molecular basis of genetic recombination, and the three-dimensional structure of macromolecular assemblies. Brandeis science faculty include 12 National Academy of Science members,[137] three Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators,[138] two Howard Hughes Medical Institute professors,[138] two MacArthur Foundation Fellows,[139] and 15 American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Fellows.[140]
Brandeis undergraduate students have the opportunity to work with faculty, postdoctoral students and graduate students to conduct
original laboratory research.[141] Brandeis also offers a number of funding resources to support independent undergraduate research projects. In 2008, Brandeis established a Science Posse program, a merit-based scholarship program that admits students based on their academic, leadership and communication skills, and their interests in studying science. Founded by Irving Epstein, the Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry, and supported by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, the Science Posse program is focused on increasing the recruitment and retention of students from traditionally underrepresented groups in the sciences. The program recruits, trains, and provides mentoring and other services for 10 inner-city Atlanta students each year who are interested in studying science at the undergraduate level.[142]
In 2014, the National Science Foundation renewed funding for Brandeis' Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC), which was established in 2008. This center supports interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary materials research and education that address fundamental problems in science and engineering that are important to society.[143] In particular, the center uses simplified components to create new materials that have some of the functionalities found in living organisms.
Wien International Scholarship[edit]
The Wien International Scholarship Program[164] was instituted by Brandeis University for international undergraduate students. It was established in 1958 by Lawrence A. and Mae Wien. The family had three objectives: to further international understanding, to provide foreign students an opportunity to study in the United States, and to enrich the intellectual and cultural life at Brandeis. The Wien Scholarship offers full or partial tuition awards; these awards are need-based and require the applicants to present outstanding academic and personal achievement. Each year, the recipients of the scholarship take a week-long tour of a destination in the United States. In previous years, the students have visited the United Nations in New York City, and did relief work in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. In April 2008, the university hosted a three-day-long celebration for the 50th anniversary of the program.