Galaxy Wars: Star Formation and Stellar Populations in Interacting Galaxies Conference

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This July 2009 workshop to be held at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) highlights the physics of galaxy interactions. Strongly interacting galaxies are in a short-lived but important stage of evolution, characterized by tidal tails, bridges, and other morphological peculiarities, along with enhanced star formation and luminous young star clusters. Recent hydrodynamical models of interactions are able to reproduce the morphology and star formation history of individual systems in some detail, while space-and ground-based telescopes have provided much new information about star and star-cluster formation. The meeting will bring together star formation experts, aficionados of stellar population synthesis, numerical modelers, and experts in observations at different wavelengths, working towards a more complete picture of these encounters. The organizers expect about 60 participants. The meeting will bring world-class researchers to an underserved region of the country. Both the list of possible speakers and the scientific organizing committee are roughly 50% women. To attract a diverse group of attendees, the meeting will be advertised by mailings to faculty at local historically-black colleges and universities, and to astronomers on the American Astronomical Society's list of minority speakers who have research interests related to the meeting topics. Local undergraduate students, high-school teachers and amateur astronomers will be invited to attend without paying a registration fee. NSF support will allow graduate students and researchers from smaller colleges to participate.