As in many universities, a faculty member at Indiana University can earn the privilege of a semester or two free from normal duties. The minimum average spacing between such leave periods is seven years, hence the name "sabbatical"

I find myself free from teaching and service obligations in the autumn of 1998, so that I may devote all my time and energy to the development of a new research interest in the physics of non-neutral plasmas.

Teaching duties will resume in 1999 with the course P340 Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics