My name is Joanna Bridge, and I'm a lucky participant in the 2010 Solar Physics REU at Montana State University in Bozeman, MT.  My project involves studying the magnetic fields of the sun in active regions on the sun's surface to understand how energy is stored in the fields and released.  Current models require a pixel by pixel approach to MDI magnetograms, whereas if the regions can be understood as a series of poles, this process would be tremendously simplified and be done in much shorter time periods.  The ultimate goal is to be able to predict the amount of energy that will be released by a flare.  Developing this algorithm will hopefully result in a process that simply requires the input of the active regions to determine the energy being stored in them.