Martin Donachie
   University of Glasgow

0810019D@student.gla.ac.uk

Solar Physics REU Program
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717
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I'm a student at Glasgow University in Scotland, studying for an MSci Physics and Astronomy. I've just finished my fourth year so I'll be heading into the final year of my degree in September. This summer I'm going to be working with Adam Kobelski and Roger Scott looking at active region transient brightenings (ARTBs). These are similar to solar flares in so much as they are magnetic reconnection events, however, they take place at lower energies and so are found to occur much more frequently, making them far easier to analyse statistically. ARTBs also involve far less complicating factors than solar flares, making them easier to describe using numerical models. The aim of the project is to develop methods for detecting ARTBs in soft x-ray data from Yohkoh and Hinode, and then to model the behaviour of the ARTBs we find, with the ultimate goal of gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms behind magnetic reconnection.