Fly through and out of our galaxy and past our neighboring galaxies, and watch computer simulations of the formation of the first star in the universe. These very first stars were an important prerequisite for the origin of life in the universe a few billion years ago. This talk will describe the cutting-edge technology that is helping us to learn what happened in the first billion years of the Universe's history.

Professor Tom Abel is Associate Professor of Physics at Stanford University and teaches at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. His research is focused on predicting how stars and galaxies form in the early universe using supercomputer calculations, building galaxies one star at a time. Animations and pictures of his computer models have been featured on Discovery Channel, PBS, the cover of National Geographic and many other national and international media. In support of his work on the first galaxies he received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 2002.