This is a talk held during the regular colloquium series (usually Tuesdays at 4pm).
The lowest-mass stellar systems offer a unique and powerful path for examining fundamental questions in galaxy formation and dark matter physics. I will discuss how globular clusters and dwarf galaxies are providing tests of the LCDM model in the local Universe and at high redshifts.
The success of ground-based transit and RV surveys, and the Kepler/K2 mission, has shifted the exoplanet field from pure discovery to a combination of discovery, demographic analysis, and detailed characterization, especially for exoplanet atmospheres.
Starbursts are a rare phenomenon in the present day universe, but they represent perhaps the most common mode under which stars form and galaxies grow during the z~1-2 peak of cosmic star formation activity.
Multi-messenger astronomy coupling gravitational waves and light was born with the detection of the first neutron star merger, GW170817.
I will review the method of atmospheric retrieval, which is a remote sensing technique borrowed from the Earth atmospheric and planetary sciences and generalised for the study of exoplanetary atmospheres.
How a massive star ends its life depends upon how that life has been lived - the rotation, mass and composition it was born with, mass loss and exchange, and the complex convective and nuclear burning episodes it experienced along the way.
