<p>It should be properly called former Yale professor John B. Fenn. He received the prize 8 years after he left Yale for VCU. To my knowledge, no Yale professor received Nobel prize in the last 20 years (since Sidney Altman). Evaluation of academic strength of a department is mainly based on 2 criteria: Extramural funding and Publication. In both aspects, Yale engineering is significantly behind other major powerhouse schools. </p>
<p>If you have other better engineering school options but choose Yale for engineering major, you are probably not very serious about engineering.</p>