The Enrico Fermi Institute

Founded at the end of World War II with a faculty that included Nobel laureates Enrico Fermi and Harold Urey, the Enrico Fermi Institute has played a central role in the development of basic research in nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, elementary particle physics, and astrophysics. Of the many Nobel laureates associated with the institute, James Cronin is currently in residence as Professor Emeritus. Early research at the institute examined the nature of nuclear structure and the origin of cosmic rays, and also established carbon-14 dating for research in geophysics and archeology. Today these interdisciplinary traditions continue among the areas most actively pursued at the institute, including high-energy experimental physics, theoretical particle physics, quantum field theory, astronomy and high-energy astrophysics, cosmology, general relativity, solar and planetary research, nuclear cosmochemistry, electron and ion microscopy, and solar energy concentration.

All members of the institute’s faculty hold one or more joint appointments in the Departments of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Chemistry, Geophysical Sciences, Mathematics, or Physics. The scientific staff of the institute also includes a number of senior scientists, senior research associates, research scientists, and postdoctoral research associates. Every year, a few outstanding young scientists from an international group of applicants are appointed as Enrico Fermi Fellows or as Robert R. McCormick Fellows. Students, both graduates involved in thesis projects and undergraduates taking their first steps in research, also play an important role in the intellectual life of the institute.

Institute faculty and scientific and technical staff occupy part of the University’s Research Institutes Building, the High Energy Physics Building, the Laboratory for Astrophysics Space Research, and the Astronomy and Astrophysics Center. Experimental research is conducted not only within these laboratories on campus but also at outside facilities such as the Argonne National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, both about an hour’s drive from campus, and the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as Salt Lake City, Utah in collaboration with the University of Utah. Equipment designed and constructed at the institute also is used in experiments on mountain observatories, balloons, the space shuttle, and many spacecraft, including those on missions to the inner and outer planets and beyond the edge of the solar system.

Last Updated 9/02/2003.