CFC2025 Conference Talks

Day 1: Tuesday May 27, 2025

Welcome to CFC 2025!

Speaker: Steven Finkelstein

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: Welcome

Day: 1

Type: Welcome remarks

The JWST Revolution in Early Galaxy Formation and Evolution

Speaker: Alice Shapley

Institution: UCLA

Session: Overview talk

Day: 1

Type: Invited Talk

Beyond mini-halos: Probing late-time Population III star formation through the UV luminosity function

Speaker: Alessandra Venditti

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 1) The Earliest Stars

Day: 1

Type: Talk

The POPSICLE Project: simulations of star cluster formation at cosmic dawn

Speaker: Piyush Sharda

Institution: Leiden University

Session: 1) The Earliest Stars

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Towards a universal analytical model for Population III star formation: interplay between feedback and fragmentation

Speaker: Boyuan Liu

Institution: Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Heidelberg University

Session: 1) The Earliest Stars

Day: 1

Type: Talk

How did it all start? Galaxy and BH formation in the first 300Myr

Speaker: Adriano Fontana

Institution: INAF OAR

Session: 1) The Earliest Stars

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Exploring Early Galaxy Formation : Stellar Populations of z > 6 galaxies in the XDF

Speaker: Monu Sharma

Institution: University of Valencia

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Modeling Early Galaxy Formation with BonFIRE

Speaker: Jenna Samuel

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Investigating z >10 ‘Blue Monsters’ Through z~8 Analogs in the BoRG-JWST Survey

Speaker: Sofía Rojas Ruiz

Institution: University of California - Los Angeles

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

No evidence (yet) for increased star-formation efficiency at cosmic dawn

Speaker: Callum Donnan

Institution: NOIRLab

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

JWST Follow-up of HST-Selected Galaxies at z=8-10 in the CANDELS Fields

Speaker: Rebecca Larson

Institution: Rochester Institute of Technology

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

The bright end of the UVLF at z >12 from COSMOS-Web+3D 

Speaker: Hollis Akins

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Lightning Talk Session #1

Speakers: Shingo Hirano, Kevin Lorinc, Dhruv Zimmerman, Jarrett Johnson, Calum Hawcroft

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type:Lightning Talks

Cosmic Dawn through the JWST Mirror: luminous galaxies, bursty star formation, and 'chemical chaos'.

Speaker: Francesco D’Eugenio

Institution: University of Cambridge

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Invited Talk

Probing Cosmic Dawn and Cosmic Reionization with the GLIMPSE Survey

Speaker: Hakim Atek

Institution: Paris Institue for Astrophysics

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

A Glimpse of the New Redshift Frontier

Speaker: Vasily Kokorev

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Hunting the first galaxies with JWST: a search for z >12 galaxies over ~0.5 sq. degrees and 130 sight-lines

Speaker: Derek McLeod

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Bursty star formation in the first galaxies: insights from JWST

Speaker: Viola Gelli

Institution: Cosmic Dawn Center (University of Copenhagen)

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

The MEGATRON Simulations: Unveiling the Spectral Diversity and ISM Physics of High-Redshift Galaxies

Speaker: Harley Katz

Institution: University of Chicago

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Spectroscopy of galaxies at the highest redshifts from JADES

Speaker: Andrew Bunker

Institution: University of Oxford

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

A Novel Turbulent Framework for Modeling High-Redshift Star-Forming Galaxies

Speaker: Guochao Sun

Institution: Northwestern/CIERA

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

THRILS: The High-(Redshift+Ionization) Line Search Program – Deep NIRSpec Spectroscopy of Galaxies at z = 4–14

Speaker: Taylor Hutchison

Institution: NASA Goddard

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Physical Properties of Extreme H𝛽+[OIII] Emitters at z ~ 7 and Their Role in Reionization

Speaker: Intae Jung

Institution: Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

AGN and star-forming activity in high redshift galaxies

Speaker: Adele Plat

Institution: EPFL

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type: Talk

Lightning Talk Session #2

Speakers: Weida Hu, Michelle Jecmen, Alexa Morales, Connor Painter, John Trevino

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type:Lightning Talks

Day 2: Wednesday May 28, 2025

Pushing the Redshift Frontier: using ALMA Fine-Structure Line Observations to reveal ISM conditions at z=14.2

Speaker: Sander Schouws

Institution: Sterrewacht Leiden

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Talk

PRIMER+JADES reveal an abundance of quiescent galaxies at high redshift

Speaker: Struan Stevenson

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Feedback and dynamical masses in high-z galaxies: the advent of high resolution NIRSpec spectroscopy

Speaker: Alberto Saldana-Lopez

Institution: Stockholm University (SU)

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Talk

MEGA: Spectrophotemetric SED Fitting of Little Red Dots Detected in JWST/MIRI

Speaker: Kaila Ronayne

Institution: Texas A&M University

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Talk

One of the most remarkable findings in early JWST data was the existence of a population of ultra-red potentially massive galaxies at z > 7.

Speaker: Erica Nelson

Institution: University of Colorado, Boulder

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Lightning Talk Session #3

Speakers: Marissa Perry, Mabel Stephenson, Natalia Villanueva, Xinfeng Xu, Hiroto Yanagisawa, Katie Chworowsky, Thomas Stanton, Nathalie Korhonen Cuestas, Beryl Hovis-Afflerbach, Kelcey Davis, Tiger Hsiao

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 1

Type:Lightning Talks

Galaxy assembly in the first billion years: Mini-quenching, lulling galaxies and more evidence for bursty SFHs

Speaker: Tobias Looser

Institution: Harvard University

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Talk

The Shocking Nitrogen Excess at z > 5

Speaker: Sophia Flury

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Discussion #1: First Stars and Galaxies

Speaker: John Chishom and Jenna Samuel

Institution:

Session: 2) Properties of the Earliest Galaxies

Day: 2

Type: Discussion

The Texas Advanced Computing Center

Speaker: Dan Stanzione and Niall Gaffney

Institution: UT Austin, TACC

Session:

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Cosmic chemical enrichment

Speaker: Chiaki Kobayashi

Institution: University of Hertfordshire

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Invited Talk

CECILIA: Direct Measurements of Gas-Phase Metallicity at Cosmic Noon

Speaker: Noah Rogers

Institution: Northwestern/CIERA

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Talk

In and Out: Transporting metals out of halos and into the first enriched stars following Population III stellar feedback

Speaker: Jennifer Mead

Institution: Columbia University

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Exploring the Discrepancy Between Optical and UV N/O

Speaker: Zorayda Martinez

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Talk

The Inhomogeneous Rise of Metallicity During the Epoch of Reionization

Speaker: Joohyun Lee

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Chemical enrichment and dust build-up in the early Universe

Speaker: Fergus Cullen

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Invited Talk

Unveiling the Secrets of Chemical Enrichment with Multi-phase Metals

Speaker: Bethan James

Institution: STScI

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Physical Drivers of the Form and Evolution of the High-Redshift Gas-Phase Mass-Metallicity Relation

Speaker: Andy Marszewski

Institution: Northwestern/CIERA

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Tracing Chemical Enrichment in Star-Forming Galaxies: Insights from abundance patterns across cosmic time

Speaker: Karla Ziboney Arellano-Cordova

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Talk

Discussion #2: Chemical Enrichment

Speaker: Danielle Berg, Fergus Cullen and Alice Shapley

Institution:

Session: 3) Chemical Enrichment

Day: 2

Type: Discussion

Day 3: Thursday May 29, 2025

Insights into Early SMBH Growth from JWST

Speaker: Dale Kocevski

Institution: Colby College

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Invited Talk

JWST's Little Red Dots: Masters of Disguise in the High-Redshift Universe

Speaker: Fabio Pacucci

Institution: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

The Turbulent Origin of the First Quasars

Speaker: Daniel Whalen

Institution: ICG, Portsmouth

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

MASQUERADE: Probing Quasar Proximity Zones Using LyA Emitters

Speaker: Minghao Yue

Institution: MIT Kavli Institute

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

The emergence of supermassive black holes in early galaxies

Speaker: Matthew Hayes

Institution: Stockholm University

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Lightning Talk Session #4

Speakers: Sabrina Berger, Madisyn Brooks, Ryan Hazlett, Madeline Marshall, Jacob Shen

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type:Lightning Talks

The emergence of the first massive black holes

Speaker: Kohei Inayoshi

Institution: KIAA Peking University

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Invited Talk

The Small Sizes and High Implied Densities of ‘Little Red Dots’

Speaker: Josephine Baggen

Institution: Yale University

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Broad-Line AGN at 3.5 < z < 6: The Black Hole Mass Function and a Connection with Little Red Dots

Speaker: Anthony Taylor

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

NIRCam Grism Surveys of JWST-Discovered AGNs / Little Red Dots: From BH Growth to Large-Scale Environments

Speaker: Xiaojing Lin

Institution: Steward Observatory / Tsinghua University

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

A JWST MIRI View of Early Supermassive Black Hole Growth

Speaker: Gene Leung

Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Measuring the Black Hole-Stellar Mass Relation at High-Redshift with JWST/NIRSpec

Speaker: Ansh Gupta

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Lightning Talk Session #5

Speakers: Antonio Porras-Valverde, Hyun Song, Urvi Thakurdesai, Saiyang Zhang, Oscar Chavez Ortiz

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type:Lightning Talks

The Emerging Black Hole Mass Function in the High-Redshift Universe

Speaker: Junehyoung Jeon

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Discussion #3: Supermassive Black Holes

Speaker: Volker Bromm, Rebecca Larson, Kohei Inayoshi

Institution:

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Discussion

The Star Formation History of the Very Low-Mass Galaxy Leo P from Resolved Stars Imaged with JWST NIRCam

Speaker: Kristen McQuinn

Institution: STScI

Session: 5) Connecting the High and Low-Redshift Universe

Day: 3

Type: Invited Talk

Population III star formation continues until the end of reionization in the THESAN-ZOOM Simulations

Speaker: Oliver Zier

Institution: Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Session: 5) Connecting the High and Low-Redshift Universe

Day: 3

Type: Talk

VLTI/GRAVITY Interferometric Insights into SMBH–Galaxy Coevolution

Speaker: Jinyi Shangguan

Institution: Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University

Session: 5) Connecting the High and Low-Redshift Universe

Day: 3

Type: Talk

A UV-to-IR view of a nearby high-z analog with JWST and HST to interpret the first galaxies

Speaker: Matilde Mingozzi

Institution: Space Telescope Science Institute

Session: 5) Connecting the High and Low-Redshift Universe

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Probing High-Density Star Formation in Metal-Poor Interacting Dwarf Galaxies

Speaker: Macarena G. del Valle-Espinosa

Institution: STScI

Session: 5) Connecting the High and Low-Redshift Universe

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Evolution of Stellar Bars and Their Host Galaxies in the Last 12 Billion Years

Speaker: Yuchen Guo

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 5) Connecting the High and Low-Redshift Universe

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Integrated and Spatially resolved interstellar medium properties of galaxies at z ~ 2 - 3 from JWST observations

Speaker: Lu Shen

Institution: Texas A&M University

Session: 5) Connecting the High and Low-Redshift Universe

Day: 3

Type: Talk

MIRI EGS Galaxy and AGN (MEGA) Survey and Early Results

Speaker: Bren Backhaus

Institution: University of Kansas

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type: Talk

Lightning Talk Session #6

Speakers: Claire Bolda, Hi-Hin Leung, Ryan Rickards Vaught, Aurélian Henry, Shuairu Zhu, Kaelee Parker

Session: 4) Formation and Growth of the Earliest Super-massive Black Holes

Day: 3

Type:Lightning Talks

Day 4: Friday May 30, 2025

ALMA and JWST observations of massive galaxies in the early Universe

Speaker: Jorge Zavala

Institution: University of Massachusetts Amherst

Session: 6) The Obscured Universe

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Modeling Galaxies in the Early Universe with Supernova Dust

Speaker: Jed McKinney

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: 6) The Obscured Universe

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Revealing the obscured cosmic star formation history at z=1-7 with JWST PRIMER and ALMA

Speaker: Fengyuan Liu

Institution: University of Edinburgh

Session: 6) The Obscured Universe

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Discussion #4: Near-Far and Obscured Universe

Speaker: Crystal Martin, Jorge Zavala, Claudia Scarlata

Institution:

Session: 6) The Obscured Universe

Day: 4

Type: Discussion

New Insights into Cosmic Dawn and Reionization from JWST

Speaker: Charlotte Mason

Institution: DAWN, University of Copenhagen

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Invited Talk

New results on modelling the properties, photometry, and ionizing emissivity of ultra-z galaxies with GUREFT-II

Speaker: L. Y. Aaron Yung

Institution: Space Telescope Science Institute

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Witnessing the onset of Reionisation via Lyman-α emission in distant galaxies

Speaker: Joris Witstok

Institution: Cosmic Dawn Center, University of Copenhagen

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Tracing LyC and Lyα Radiation in High-Redshift Galaxies from the THESAN-ZOOM Simulations

Speaker: Aaron Smith

Institution: The University of Texas at Dallas

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Lightning Talk Session #7

Speakers: Christopher Cain, Garrett Lopez, Paul Shapiro, Emanuele Maria Ventura, Hanjue Zhu, Crystal Martin, Julian Muñoz, Maria Straight, Ely Kovetz, Yonatan Sklansky, Ben Weiner

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type:Lightning Talks

The Pitfalls of Using Lyman Alpha Damping Wings in High-z Galaxy Spectra to Measure the Intergalactic Neutral Hydrogen Fraction

Speaker: Claudia Scarlata

Institution: University of Minnesota

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization are All Bark and No Bite: Plenty of Ionizing Photons, Low Escape Fractions

Speaker: Casey Papovich

Institution: Texas A&M

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Unveiling the Cosmic Web: Insights on Reionization and Early Structures from JWST Wide-Field Slitless Spectroscopic Surveys

Speaker: Koki Kakiichi

Institution: Cosmic Dawn Center, University of Copenhagen

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

A spectroscopic analysis of ionizing photon production efficiency with minimal systematics.

Speaker: Anthony Pahl

Institution: Carnegie Science: Observatories

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Synergies between cosmic reionization and JWST galaxy surveys in unveiling the early universe

Speaker: Ankita Bera

Institution: University of Maryland

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Talk

Discussion #5: Reionization and Cosmology

Speaker: Charlotte Mason, Julian Muñoz, Casey Papovich

Institution:

Session: 7) Reionization and Cosmology

Day: 4

Type: Discussion

Closing Remarks

Speaker: Steven Finkelstein and Volker Bromm

Institution: University of Texas at Austin

Session: Closing

Day: 4

Type: Closing remarks