Constellations are multidisciplinary teams of senior faculty, junior faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. The constellation faculty comprise three or more outstanding stars in a particular research field.

Rensselaer’s research constellations build upon existing core strengths in microelectronics and microsystems, advanced materials, nanotechnology, and advanced scientific computation, modeling, and simulation.

In Computation and Information Technology, Constellation focal areas are:

• Future Chips: revolutionary computing, such as quantum or molecular computing, and leapfrog device technologies.
• Computational Science and Engineering: changing the face of scientific inquiry.
• Tetherless World: pervasive computing and distributed intelligent systems.

In Biotechnology, they are:

• Biocatalysis and Metabolic Engineering
• Biocomputation and Bioinformatics
• Integrative Systems Biology
• Functional Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

Constellations in entrepreneurship and other key research areas are under development.