ROCHESTER, MN

Rochester, which is consistently voted by independent rating organizations to be one of the best small cities in the US for quality of life, is notably lacking in sprawl, traffic, and environmental pollution. We are a small city of approximately 100,000 people, located in fertile, rolling farmlands just to the west of the Upper Mississippi River valley.

The population is highly educated and culturally diverse, with professionals drawn to the medical and computing industries from all over the world. Schools are outstanding, and have extraordinary rates of parent participation and college placement.

Housing prices and other costs of living are dramatically lower than coastal urban areas of the US. Commutes are trivial, or absent: many Mayo scientists-- like our lab PI--walk to work. Rochester International Airport is a few minutes from downtown and enjoys quick air connections, and the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) are an hour's trip by car.

Mayo has an unusually strong commitment to diversity: consistent with the interestingly international, multi-cultural community to which we belong, we are strongly committed to equal opportunity employment.

The weather? The seasons are enjoyable and sharply defined with long, warm summer days, classically colorful autumns, and cold but dry and brilliantly sunny winters. Winters are milder here in southern MN than one might suspect: we are farther south from International Falls, MN on the Canadian border than New York City is from Bangor, Maine (it's true, check it out: http://www.census.gov ).We are a bit south of Milan, Italy in latitude. The community is superbly adapted to the climate, and commuting is no hassle, and in our experience this makes for an easier (and considerably sunnier) winter than in most urban areas of New England or the Mid-Atlantic states.

For some more information about the City of Rochester, see http://www.mayo.edu/education/mcr.html.