MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Montana State University-Bozeman is conveniently located only a 20 minute walk from downtown. The MSU campus offers spectacular scenery, with views of the Spanish Peaks, Gallatin, Bridger, and Tobacco Root Mountains. The Strand Union (with bookstore, restaurants, recreation center, copy service, lounges and many other services) will serve as the base of operations for Symposium 195. The Renne Library, residence halls and athletic facilities are immediately at hand. The academic buildings offer spacious modern classrooms, laboratories, art, film & television studios, theaters and auditoriums as well as conference rooms to accommodate seminars.

Stimulating instruction and research are hallmarks of the MSU Department of Physics which has been educating creative and productive scientists for many years. Our research facilities include a new building with state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment. External collaborations bring national and international experts to Bozeman and allow our scientists to conduct research along with other outstanding institutions and laboratories around the world. Physicists also participate in interdisciplinary research programs with the departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and with the Center for Biofilm Engineering.

The Astrophysics Research Group is concerned primarily with neutron star thermal and rotational evolution and processes around supermassive black holes which involve many areas of physics, e.g. plasmas, magnetohydrodynamics, and general relativity. The group also carries out observation-related studies of active galactic nuclei and pulsars using several high energy space satellite missions, and studies phase transition dynamics in the early universe.

The Solar Physics Group conducts contemporary research aimed at understanding the Sun as a star and as the source of solar-terrestrial effects. The group is best known for its central role in several space missions (YOHKOH, TRACE, HESSI), as well as theoretical and computational research in magnetohydrodynamics and radition transfer. During the coming years, the group will combine these space-based studies with ground-based instrumentation for magnetic field measurements and theoretical and computational studies of solar magnetic fields.