Stars are born inside clouds of gas and dust, which can hide the earliest stages of their lives from view. To understand how young stars form and emerge from these dusty environments, we need to observe galaxies across many different wavelengths. In this talk, I will present results from my PhD research using observations from AstroSat, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other major observatories to study star-forming regions in nearby galaxies. I will show how ultraviolet observations reveal young stars that have emerged from their birth clouds, while infrared observations with JWST uncover sources that are still surrounded by dust. By studying thousands of star-forming regions across nearby galaxies, we can trace how their appearance changes during the first few million years of their lives and investigate how dust and the surrounding galactic environment influence their evolution. These observations provide a detailed view of the life cycle of young stellar populations, from dusty regions of star formation to exposed young star clusters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hamid Hassani is a PhD candidate in Physics at the University of Alberta, where he studies star formation and young stellar populations in nearby galaxies. His research combines observations across ultraviolet, optical, infrared, millimetre, and radio wavelengths using facilities including AstroSat, the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Very Large Array. He is a member of the PHANGS collaboration and has contributed to several observing programs studying the evolution of gas, dust, and young stars in nearby galaxies.