Yale Wright Laboratory

WNSL’s grassy pyramid and the parking lot, with East Rock in the background. Photograph by Peter Parker taken on May 31, 1985.

Post courtesy of historian Eun-Joo Ahn.
Physics Department

Students in the summer program attended an Introduction to Advanced Prototyping at Wright Lab. Advanced Instrumentation Development Center (AIDC) Director Jack DiSciacca provided a brief overview of the advanced prototyping capabilities available at Wright Lab and the upcoming AIDC (opening for Fall 2026), followed by demonstrations in the shop of the water jet cutter and laser cutter by Research Shop supervisor Craig Miller.

Yale Physics Department

Why I do :

“I do science for the same reason others play sports, make music, produce art, or raise children—because it’s fun, I love doing it, it produces something beautiful, and it makes us human."

"Physics matters because it often provides simple explanations for what first appear to be vastly different puzzling aspects of nature — think correlations in the locations of galaxies, wavelike cloud formations, ripples on the surface of a pond.”

— David Rabinowitz, Yale Physics Department Senior Research Scientist Emeritus at

Students in the summer program at toured Wright Lab last Friday and learned from some of our researchers in their labs who are working on a variety of experiments that are exploring the invisible Universe, including the Electron-Ion-Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory , Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, ALPHA, QuIPs and MAST-QG, LEVISPHERE, drone calibration for radio telescopes, Project 8, and the and .

Yale Physics Department

Ghosts of past and present: J.W. Gibbs Laboratory (at left) has been demolished, while WLW (at right) still stands today. Kline Tower and Sloane Physics Lab are in the background. Photograph by Peter Parker taken on May 31, 1985.

Yale Physics Department

Post courtesy of historian Eun-Joo Ahn.

Today some of our summer students received a safety orientation for the use of the Wright Lab machine and prototyping shops from Frank Pekarski of Yale Environmental Health & Safety .

Find out more about Wright Lab safety at https://wlab.yale.edu/safety

Yale Physics Department

Why I do : “Our innovations of recent decades have been like putting on glasses for the first time. People today are seeing the Universe with greater sight than any that came before. This new frontier has only just opened before us; it would be a waste to not explore it. I do physics to be one of the first that gets to see this sight.” — Sophia Hollick, Yale Physics Department Ph.D. ‘25 ( alum).

Today we officially kicked off the 2026 Summer Student Research Program at Wright Lab! We welcomed our 57 students who are doing research with us this summer.

The 9-week Wright Lab summer student research program is open to undergraduates and postgraduates who are doing research this summer at the Yale Physics Department , the Yale Astronomy Department , or the Yale Quantum Institute (YQI), including those in certain associated programs at Hopkins School Authentic Research Program in Science (HARPS), SCSU (Werth IAF/Quantum Pie), and QuantumCT.

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A huge thank you to all of our NPA seminar speakers from Spring 2026! They include: Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli, James Kingston, Raymond Ehlers, Gabe Hoshino, Shenyang Shi, Hannah Banks, Junior Peña, Samantha Davis, Daniel Kodroff, Luigi Benussi, and Carlos Argüelles Delgado.

Yale Physics Department

Why I do : “Science matters because it allows us to better understand ourselves, to better understand the world around us, and to better understand the result of the mutual interactions between ourselves and the world. The scientific enterprise—and the knowledge it generates—is thus a critical part of both building and maintaining prosperous societies, and of attaining a greater quality of life for Earth’s inhabitants.” — Charles Brown, Yale Physics Department Assistant Professor at