Stony Brook University has achieved its highest position to date in the 2025-26 U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities for Physics, ranking 39th globally and 19th nationally. This marks the first time the university has entered the top 40 worldwide and top 20 in the United States. Two years ago, Stony Brook held positions 77 and 27 in these categories.
Chang Kee Jung, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, commented on the new rankings: “I am exceptionally pleased to see that U.S.News and World Report ranked our department within top 40 globally and top 20 nationally for the first time in history. While I truly believe the quality of our department is even higher, I welcome these rankings that reflect our excellent faculty, and graduate and undergrad programs. I am proud to say the Department of Physics and Astronomy is an exceptional department that continues its effort to improve itself and make it a warm, welcoming and fun place with high academic excellence, where everyone wants to come.”
The Department of Physics and Astronomy operates within Stony Brook’s College of Arts and Sciences. It maintains partnerships with institutions such as Brookhaven National Laboratory, Flatiron Institute, and Institute for Advanced Computational Science. The department also hosts specialized centers including the Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science and the Center for Accelerator Science and Education.
Faculty members from this department have been recognized with major awards such as Nobel Prizes, Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, memberships in national academies, fellowships from scientific societies like AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) and APS (American Physical Society), among others.
In addition to its core activities, faculty are shared with other research entities at Stony Brook: CN Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics focuses on areas like high energy physics, cosmology, quantum information science; Simons Center for Geometry and Physics advances work at the intersection of geometry and theoretical physics; Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology aims to progress biology through approaches rooted in physics, mathematics, and computational science.
