Speaker
Description
The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory began its ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) in mid-2026, marking the start of an unprecedented survey of the southern sky. In this talk I present an overview of the observatory's current status from my perspective as part of the Mexican participation in the project, providing context for the broader community. I then turn to the scientific questions that motivate my own interest in this new dataset: the discovery and characterization of strong gravitational lens systems. LSST is expected to increase the known population of strong lenses by more than an order of magnitude, opening new opportunities for cosmological studies. I will also discuss the powerful synergies with DESI and outline the opportunities this presents for the Latin American astronomical and cosmological community.