Thomas Nosker, a research associate professor of materials science and engineering, has developed a way to use the plastic from recycled milk jugs and car bumpers to build bridges.
Research at Rutgers
As New Jersey’s premier public research university, Rutgers creates new knowledge, fueling economic progress, improving lives, and enriching our humanity. Autism. The ocean floor. Walt Whitman. Islamic art. DNA. Airport security. Supply chain management. Transportation safety. We explore it all, bound only by the reach of human imagination.
When one thinks of our nation’s most ambitious goals for turning research into ideas, products, and practices that take us all to new heights, one thinks of America’s great research universities. Rutgers is one of these greats. Rutgers is the only public university in New Jersey in the Association of American Universities (AAU), a group comprising North America’s 62 leading research universities. Rutgers and Princeton are New Jersey’s only AAU members. Graduate and undergraduate students at Rutgers join in the pursuit of meaningful, original research, guided by faculty for whom discovery is a lifelong passion.
Turning Garbage into Bridges
Presidential Early Career Award Recipient
President Barack Obama has announced that Nihal Altan-Bonnet, assistant professor of biological sciences on the Newark Campus, is among 96 researchers nationwide selected to receive the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
The prestigious award recognizes innovative work at the frontiers of science and a commitment to community service. Learn more.
The Age of Early Humans
When paleontologists find really, really old bones, Rutgers geologist Craig Feibel is the person who can tell them how old is really, really old. Learn more.
Photo: Fred Spoor
Rutgers Research Leadership
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The World’s Molecular Library
The Protein Data Bank is the single worldwide repository for three-dimensional protein structures. Scientists around the globe use the free, online library to study, store, and share molecular information.
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The Archives of Iconic Americans
Rutgers historians are the chief archivists for the papers of inventor Thomas Edison and suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
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The Next Generation of Wireless Communication
Rutgers’ WINLAB is home to the world’s largest open-access lab for testing new wireless technology. The National Science Foundation awarded a three-year, $7.5 million grant to a WINLAB-led team to develop a future internet design optimized for mobile networking and communication.
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Innovation in Childhood Studies
The nation’s first Ph.D. program in childhood studies is found at Rutgers. The Center for Children and Childhood Studies is unique in the nation for its methodological study of children and childhood in historical, multicultural, and global contexts.
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Experts on Preschool Education
Rutgers experts issue the nation’s annual report card on the state of state-funded preschool education.
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Anthropological Finds
Fossils dated by Associate Professor Craig S. Feibel suggest that more than one member of genus Homo (which includes modern humans) lived alongside our ancestor Homo erectus in eastern Africa between 1.78 million and 1.95 million years ago.
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World’s Largest University-Based Cell and DNA Repository
The Rutgers Cell and DNA Repository, the world’s largest repository of its kind, is a key national center for the study of genetics and mental health, drug abuse, alcoholism, diabetes, and digestive and kidney diseases.
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Nutrition and Health at the Forefront
Rutgers stands out in nutrition research and education, including running the nation's only university-based nutritional sciences preschool. To focus on obesity and its associated diseases, Rutgers recently established the Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health.
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Transforming Transportation
Rutgers’ Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation is one of only 15 national Tier 1 University Transportation Centers and leads the Federal Highway Administration’s Long-Term Bridge Performance Program, an initiative to ensure the safety of 590,000 U.S. bridges.
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Breaking New Ground in Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience
The researchers of tomorrow are being trained at Rutgers’ Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience. The center’s 13 research teams, including the Infancy Studies Laboratory, are at the forefront of neuroscience research.
Sponsored Research Exceeds $433 Million
In fiscal year 2010, more than $433.9 million of research at Rutgers was sponsored by the federal government, state government, corporations, and foundations, providing research experiences for undergraduates, supporting graduate assistants and postdoctoral researchers, and bringing state–of–the–art equipment and facilities to our campuses.
What Is an AAU Institution?
Rutgers is one of the nation’s leading comprehensive public research universities and the only public university in New Jersey in the Association of American Universities (AAU). AAU institutions are North America’s 62 leading research universities, recognized for the quality and scope of their research and educational programs. Rutgers and Princeton are New Jersey’s only AAU institutions.
What Is a Land-Grant Institution?
America’s land-grant institutions were created by the Morrill Act of 1862 to serve the states and their citizens by more widely disseminating practical knowledge developed at key institutions of higher learning. From an early emphasis on agriculture and the mechanical arts, today the nation’s 76 land-grant institutions have expanded their mission to include a broad range of teaching, research, and service activities. As New Jersey’s land-grant institution, Rutgers is in the company of other land-grants such as Cornell, MIT, Ohio State, and Penn State.
New Center Studies the Machinery of the Body
With the opening of a state-of-the-art proteomics center on the Busch Campus, Rutgers will continue to lead in the study of the structures, functions, and interactions of proteins, “the building blocks of life.” Learn more.
