Stony Brook University, also known as the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university founded in 1957 located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about 50 miles (80 km) east of Manhattan.Stony Brook University is one of the four university centers, is considered the flagship institution of the State University of New York. The main campus is home to more than 24,500 students, and 138,560 alumni. The University is organized by schools and colleges, including the Medical, Dental, and Graduate School, and several branch campuses including Stony Brook Manhattan, whose operations were consolidated in 2010, and Stony Brook Southampton, whose operations were reduced to the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and the MFA Program in Writing and Literature also in 2010. Stony Brook is one of 63 leading research universities in the U.S and joined the American Association of Universities (AAU) in 2001. Stony Brook University Medical Center, completed in 1980, is Suffolk County’s only tertiary hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center, and the only academic medical center in Suffolk County—larger also than any in Nassau County.