Institute for Advanced Study/Princeton University Joint Astrophysics Colloquium - NOTE LOCATION!

A combination of sub-mm observations and numerical simulations have the potential to yield direct constraints on the environment of planet formation. After a review of recent observational surprises, I will discuss the implications of our first principles simulations of turbulence within protoplanetary disks, and how they may be tested observationally. I will argue that both observations and theory point toward a model in which early stage planet formation is concentrated at specific radii, and present preliminary dynamical models of growth from these initial conditions.