We were just awarded a grant from UC-HiPACC to establish a UC Davis - UC Irvine collaboration to study merging clusters, with the directive of determining the nature of dark matter. Dark Matter is one of the great outstanding mysteries.  Although still in its infancy, the study of merging galaxy clusters has been shown to be one of the best means of determining the nature of dark matter.  However to realize this potential requires a concerted effort on the part of astronomers and computational theorist, due to necessity to compare simulations and observations of real systems. 

This has been a great week so far!  Five days ago I found out that our Keck proposal was accepted and that I would be headed to Hawaii in January.  Then today I found out that our Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) proposal was accepted.