Jake Simon has won a NASA Emerging Worlds grant (~$563,000 over 3 years) to study the formation of the distant, icy bodies beyond the orbit of Pluto (the Kuiper Belt).  This work will answer key questions about these bodies, such as why the Kuiper Belt has a surprisingly low mass compared with theoretical expectations as well as how the Kuiper Belt Objects end up with the distribution of sizes that they are observed to have.  Addressing these questions is essential to our understanding of how our Solar System came into existence. Congratulations, Jake!