Astronomers are piecing together the story of how galaxies like the Milky Way formed and evolved over time. With JWST acting as a cosmic time machine, we can look billions of years into the past to observe galaxies in their earliest stages. Its high sensitivity, combined with gravitational lensing, allows us to resolve high-redshift galaxies down to individual star clusters. Discoveries like the Sparkler, Earendel, Firefly Sparkle, and Cosmic Gems are already reshaping our understanding of early star formation. In the coming year, we will continue exploring these distant galaxies with JWST, uncovering new details about their structure and evolution.

Astronomers have studied galaxy shapes for centuries, long before the extragalactic universe was known. As early as the 10th century, Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi recorded Andromeda as a "small white cloud," distinguishing it from stars. Today, galaxy morphology remains crucial for understanding their formation and evolution. Defining a galaxy’s size is complex, as it depends on its light, dust, orientation, and measurement method. Our goal is to trace galaxy size evolution across cosmic time, separating observational biases from true growth to better understand how galaxies assemble.

JWST is transforming extragalactic astronomy, uncovering massive early galaxies, high-redshift AGN, and young star clusters. However, most studies focus on extreme cases, leaving much of JWST’s vast dataset underutilized. To address this, we are developing J-HIVE: JWST's Homogeneous Information-Rich Visualization of Extragalactic Datasets. This project will create uniform catalogs of galaxy properties, build an interactive explorer for data visualization, and apply machine learning to map galaxy populations. Using open software and Wellesley HPC, J-HIVE aims to make JWST data more accessible, ensuring researchers worldwide can explore the universe with ease.