group of U.S. universities that administers the operation of two federally funded research facilities, one in nuclear physics and the other in radio astronomy. The member institutions are Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Rochester, and Yale. AUI was incorporated in 1946 to manage the then new Brookhaven National Laboratory at Upton, Long Island, N.Y., for the Atomic Energy Commission. Brookhaven, now funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, carries out experiments in nuclear physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, and medicine. AUI was later chosen by the U.S. National Science Foundation to manage the National Radio Astronomical Observatory (NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory)), headquartered in Charlottesville, Va. The NRAO conducts extensive studies of cosmic sources of radio-frequency radiation.