<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear Colleagues,<br><br>We wish to advertise the Saas-Fee Winter Course 2012. Please consider<br>displaying the attached poster in your institute and distribute to<br>interested colleagues: 42nd Saas-Fee Winter Course of the Swiss<br>Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy (SSAA) on “Dynamics of Young<br>Star Clusters and Associations”, March 25-31, 2012, in Villars-sur-<br>Ollon, Switzerland.<br><br>We are pleased to announce the program for the 2012 Saas-Fee Course<br>with a series of lectures concerning the theory and observational<br>constraints on the dynamics of young star clusters and associations.<br>With the proliferation of large area photometric, radial velocity, and<br>astrometric surveys from ground-based telescopes, the launch of Gaia<br>planned for 2013, and the explosive increase in our capacity to<br>simulate the dynamics of these complex systems, the time is right to<br>visit this topic. The school will attempt to address such questions as:<br><br>1) How common are star-forming events of varying richness?<br>2) What are the dynamical states of these events?<br>3) In what sort of star-forming event did the Sun form?<br>4) How can we use answers to these questions to constrain<br>predictive theories of star formation?<br><br>These questions will be addressed by the following distinguished<br>international faculty:<br><br>Prof. Cathie Clarke, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge<br>Prof. Robert Mathieu, Dept. of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin<br>Dr. Neill Reid, Space Telescope Science Institute<br><br>These schools, which began over 40 years ago, are intended for<br>graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and senior researchers<br>interested in learning more about the topic. Registration is now open<br>with early registration discount deadline 15 January, 2012. The<br>school is limited to 100 participants. Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland<br>is located in the heart of the Alpes Vaudoises and provides a range of<br>winter sport and other activities. It should provide an excellent<br>setting for this school. Travel grants are available for students who<br>also plan to attend the meeting in Grenoble“From Atoms to Pebbles:<br>Herschel’s view of Star and Planet Formation”. More information is<br>available on the website: <a href="http://www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/sf2012/">http://www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/sf2012/</a><br><br><br><br>Regards,<br><br>Michael Meyer<br><br>(on behalf of the LOC)<br></body></html>