External Rankings of the Department of Physics & Astronomy,
State University of New York at Stony Brook

The Department of Physics & Astronomy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook is regarded as one of the top Physics and Astronomy departments in the country. The bases for these recent rankings include:


Citation Impact Study

In the Nov./Dec. 1998 issue of Science Watch, physics departments were ranked based on citation impact: how often did other researchers cite papers by Stony Brook faculty, postdocs, and graduate students as the basis for further work? The results on the top ten departments were:

Rank University No. of
Papers		 Relative
Impact
1 Univ. Cal. Santa Barbara 2,526 176
2 University of Chicago 1,236 171
3 Harvard University 1,844 167
4 Caltech 3,588 162
5 Yale University 872 160
6 Rutgers University 1,438 157
7 Univ. of Pennsylvania 1,168 153
8 Stanford University 2,584 152
9 SUNY Stony Brook 1,385 148
10 Michigan State University 1,049 142

R&D Expenditures in Physics

Funding for research and development is usually awarded based on peer review. The programs which are funded are those whom other researchers in the field view as being of high quality and which propose exciting new research. For Fiscal Year 1997, here is the cumulative funding of the top U.S. Physics departments:

Rank Institution Dollars
(thousands)
1 MIT 90,357
2 Johns Hopkins Univ. 71,693
3 Caltech 56,972
4 Univ. Cal. Berkeley 44,069
5 Cornell Univ. 34,248
6 Univ. of Md. College Park 28,617
7 Univ. Cal. Los Angles 22,921
8 Michigan State Univ. 22,882
9 Univ. of Arizona 20,525
10 Univ. Cal. San Diego 19,238
11 Princeton Univ. 15,120
12 Univ. Wisc. Madison 15,020
13 Univ of Pennsylvania 14,553
14 SUNY Stony Brook 14,427
15 Indiana University 14,002
16 Univ. of Michigan 13,677
17 Univ. of Iowa 12,518
18 Florida State Univ. 12,020
19 Univ. Texas Austin 12,013
20 Rutgers Univ. 11,667
21 Univ. Mass. Amherst 10,603
22 Univ. Cal. Santa Barbara 9,991
23 Univ. Illinois Urbana 9,983
24 Univ of Colorado 9,912
25 Harvard Univ. 9,837

Diamond/Graham Study of Astronomy Programs

In the article "HOW SHOULD WE RATE RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES?" by Nancy Diamond and Hugh Davis Graham, published in the July/August 2000 issue of Change, ASTRONOMY programs were rated on the basis of citation density (citations per faculty member). The results are as shown in the table below:

Rank Campus Citations/Faculty Z-Score
1 Caltech 203.8  3.486
2 UC-Berkeley 137.0  1.707
3 UMass-Amherst 133.8  1.622
4 UC-Santa Cruz 115.5  1.134
5 Harvard 100.1  0.724
6 Princeton 99.8  0.716
7 MIT 88.3  0.410
8 SUNY Stony Brook 85.6  0.338
9 Colorado 83.9  0.292
9 Yale 83.9  0.292
11 Minnesota 81.2  0.221
12 Chicago 74.4  0.039
12 Cornell 74.4  0.039
14 UCLA 73.2  0.007
15 Maryland-College Park 67.2 -0.152
16 Arizona 64.9 -0.214
17 Texas-Austin 64.5 -0.224
18 Stanford 61.7 -0.299
19 Columbia 61.4 -0.307
20 Wisconsin-Madison 55.3 -0.469
21 Illinois-Urbana 54.1 -0.501
22 Indiana 50.6 -0.595
22 Ohio State 50.6 -0.595
24 Hawaii-Manoa 49.3 -0.629
25 Michigan 46.8 -0.696

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