The NE Department was officially formed in 1960 and is one of the oldest such programs in the U.S. 

The construction of the accelerator facility was completed in 1961 and the facility would soon be named after Professor Gaerttner who was instrumental in establishing NE at Rensselaer and who served as NE’s first departmental head. Within a few years, the NE Department at Rensselaer awarded its first PhD degrees and then B.S. degrees.

With today's need for inexpensive sources of energy, Rensselaer nuclear engineering graduates are in great demand for positions in industry or graduate study. Additionally, there are exciting possibilities in space power propulsion, fusion reactor engineering, medicine, and national defense.