Berkeley Lab's Nuclear Science Division has played the leading role in the construction of STAR and will lead the experimental team that analyzes the data needed to discover and characterize the quark-gluon plasma.  The STAR collaboration includes some 400 physicists and engineers from 36 institutions around the world. The collaboration is led by physicist John Harris, formerly with Berkeley Lab's Nuclear Science Division and now a professor of physics at Yale, and Jay Marx with our Nuclear Science Division, who directs the design and construction of STAR.