Early Galaxies and Infant Black Holes

This international conference is dedicated to advancing our understanding of the first generation of galaxies and black holes during the first billion years of cosmic history. The unprecedented sensitivity and spectral resolution of JWST have transformed this field, revealing a rapidly growing population of high-redshift AGNs, compact star-forming galaxies, and rest-frame UV–optical diagnostics that challenge established models of early stellar populations, chemical enrichment, black hole seeding, accretion physics, and radiative feedback.

The meeting brings together observers, theorists, and simulators working on high-redshift galaxies and stellar populations, early chemical enrichment, AGN demographics, accretion flows, radiative and mechanical feedback, obscuration gas and dust, and the co-evolution of black holes, galaxies, and their environments. Particular emphasis will be placed on interpreting JWST observations; connecting multiwavelength constraints to physical models of accretion, outflows, and anisotropic emission; and exploring the implications for reionization and the thermal history of the intergalactic medium. By combining the latest observational results with state-of-the-art numerical and analytical work, the conference aims to define a coherent picture of the earliest phases of the formation of stars, black holes and galaxies at cosmic dawn, and to outline the key questions to be addressed in the JWST era and beyond.

Planned sessions include:

• First Stars and the Earliest Stellar Systems

• Early Chemical and Dust Enrichment and Abundance Patterns

• Early Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn: Assembly, Scaling Relations, Structures

• Infant Black Holes, Seeds, and Little Red Dots

• Reionization in the JWST Era: Sources, Topology, IGM Thermal History

• Multi-wavelength Properties of Early AGN and Quasars

• Feedback from Stars, Black Holes, and Bursty Star Formation

• Accretion Physics and Black Hole Assembly: Super- and sub-Eddington Growth, Mergers.