Research Laboratory of Electronics

The Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) is an applied physics and electrical engineering research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Established on July 1, 1946, as MIT's first interdepartmental laboratory, it became a model for postwar academic science, combining basic electronics research with military funding and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Emerging from the wartime Radiation Laboratory and supported primarily by the military's Joint Services Electronics Program, RLE trained hundreds of doctoral students in fields ranging from microwave electronics to communications theory, producing numerous MIT leaders by the early 1960s.