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I’m a cosmologist so I study dark matter,
dark energy,

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the nature of the universe.

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I’m a Ph.D. student.

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And so, I'm hoping that

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one of the major questions
that I attempt to answer over my Ph.D.

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is to say something about the role

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of massive stars and UV
radiation on star formation.

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We study the formation of young stars

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in galaxies that are nearby.

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And it's incredibly important
because star formation is

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one of the things
that changes galaxies over the time.

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Most ordinary stars are forming
near massive stars,

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and the massive stars are dominating
how the entire region is evolving.

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Stars are what create all the metals
in the universe; they have an outsized

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impact on the structure of galaxies.

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And the impact,

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it's not only the stars that are forming,
but the way they interact

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with the gas and dust around them.

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So, for the work that I'm doing,
Webb is much better than what we could get

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with Hubble,
particularly in the near infrared,

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where it has just much better resolution
and greater sensitivity.

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So it is allowing us to get
just more precise measurements

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without some of the noise
that we've had in previous measurements.

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When stars are forming,
they're very hard to see

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because they are engulfed
in a cloud of material.

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You need to be very sensitive to be able
to see any signature of the star.

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James Webb gives us that sensitivity
for the first time.

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Not only does
JWST allow us to see through the dust

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– because it's less affected by the dust –

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but more importantly –
especially in the nearby galaxy

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imaging that we're seeing at the longer
infrared wavelengths –

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it's the dust emission that we see.

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I'm particularly intrigued
by some of these very massive galaxies

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that have formed shortly
after the Big Bang.

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Trying to understand
how they got so massive so early,

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how they got so evolved
so early, it's sort of like,

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you know, looking back in time
and seeing still quite

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evolved creatures and trying to understand
how did they evolve so fast?

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I just feel very lucky to be an astronomer

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studying

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the Webb data at this time.