Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut, closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer and Amos Eaton for the "application of science to the common purposes of life" and is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere.

Troy is a city in the United States state of New York and is the county seat of Rensselaer County, New York. It's famous for being the home of Uncle Sam, known as the person who supplied beef for the United States Army during the War of 1812. It's also known for the home of Garnet Douglass Baltimore, who is known as the first African-American to become an engineer and graduated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1881. It is located on the western edge of that county on the eastern bank of the Hudson River just northeast of the capital city of Albany. Troy has close ties to Albany, New York and nearby Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District.