Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut, closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer and Amos Eaton for the "application of science to the common purposes of life" and is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. Built on a hillside, RPI's campus overlooks the city of Troy and the Hudson River. The institute operates an on‑campus business incubator and the Rensselaer Technology Park. RPI is organized into six main schools which contain 37 departments, with emphasis on science and technology. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity". As of 2017, RPI's faculty and alumni included 6 members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, 6 National Medal of Technology winners, 5 National Medal of Science winners, 8 Fulbright Scholarship recipients, and Nobel Prize winning engineer Ivar Giaever. History