Scientists have been preparing for more than a decade to analyze data from the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which is expected to be carried out by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory starting in late 2024. This open-access dataset will be higher in volume, velocity, and complexity than any previous astrophysics experiment and could spark an extraordinary era of discovery into fundamental questions about the Universe, but capability gaps could severely limit the science that can be done. This Scialog series aims to mitigate two impediments to realizing the full scientific potential of LSST: the lack of seed funding to ignite early LSST discoveries with these data, and the critical need to create the cross-disciplinary connections required to tackle the biggest questions LSST is poised to address. This Scialog will facilitate connections between approximately 50 early career observational astronomers, cosmologists, theoretical physicists and astrophysicists, computational modelers, data scientists, and software engineers, with the goal of catalyzing collaborative projects that will advance the early science needed to make the most of a dataset enabled by one of the most powerful observational machines ever built.
Applications to participate in the 2026 meeting will be considered until May 1, 2026.