• M.A. Palmer, J.P. Alexander, M.G. Billing, J.R. Calvey, S.S. Chapman, G.W. Codner, C.J. Conolly, J.A. Crittenden, J. Dobbins, G. Dugan, E. Fontes, M.J. Forster, R.E. Gallagher, S.W. Gray, S. Greenwald, D.L. Hartill, W.H. Hopkins, J. Kandaswamy, D.L. Kreinick, Y. Li, X. Liu, J.A. Livezey, A. Lyndaker, V. Medjidzade, R.E. Meller, S.B. Peck, D.P. Peterson, M.C. Rendina, P. Revesz, D.H. Rice, N.T. Rider, D. L. Rubin, D. Sagan, J.J. Savino, R.D. Seeley, J.W. Sexton, J.P. Shanks, J.P. Sikora, K.W. Smolenski, C.R. Strohman, A.B. Temnykh, M. Tigner, S. Vishniakou, W.S. Whitney, T. Wilksen, H.A. Williams
  CLASSE, Ithaca, New York
• J.M. Byrd, C.M. Celata, J.N. Corlett, S. De Santis, M.A. Furman, A. Jackson, R. Kraft, D.V. Munson, G. Penn, D.W. Plate, A.W. Rawlins, M. Venturini, M.S. Zisman
  LBNL, Berkeley, California
• J.W. Flanagan, P. Jain, K. Kanazawa, K. Ohmi, H. Sakai, K. Shibata, Y. Suetsugu
  KEK, Ibaraki
• K.C. Harkay
  ANL, Argonne
• Y. He, M.C. Ross, C.-Y. Tan, R.M. Zwaska
  Fermilab, Batavia
• R. Holtzapple
  CalPoly, San Luis Obispo, CA
• J.K. Jones
  STFC/DL/ASTeC, Daresbury, Warrington, Cheshire
• D. Kharakh, M.T.F. Pivi, L. Wang
  SLAC, Menlo Park, California
• E.N. Smith
  Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• A. Wolski
  Cockcroft Institute, Warrington, Cheshire

Funding: Support provided by the US National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, and the Japan/US Cooperation Program.

In March of 2008, the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) concluded twenty eight years of colliding beam operations for the CLEO high energy physics experiment. We have reconfigured CESR as an ultra low emittance damping ring for use as a test accelerator (CesrTA) for International Linear Collider (ILC) damping ring R&D. The primary goals of the CesrTA program are to achieve a beam emittance approaching that of the ILC Damping Rings with a positron beam, to investigate the interaction of the electron cloud with both low emittance positron and electron beams, to explore methods to suppress the electron cloud, and to develop suitable advanced instrumentation required for these experimental studies (in particular a fast x-ray beam size monitor capable of single pass measurements of individual bunches). We report on progress with the CESR conversion activities, the status and schedule for the experimental program, and the first experimental results that have been obtained.

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