The research to be carried out in this grant will focus on observations of the interstellar medium (ISM) in nearby disk galaxies. The research will address several unresolved issues in our understanding of the interstellar medium. It will address the morphology of the neutral and ionized hydrogen gas and the dependence on Hubble type and star formation rates. It will examine the role of diffuse ionized gas in the interstellar medium and will study ionized gas regions (HII regions) that are located high above the plane of the galaxy and far from its center.
