The chemical compositions of stellar atmospheres reflect the interstellar gas from which they formed, each one containing a snapshot of the Milky Way Galaxy’s chemical evolution. By comparing abundances of stars across the disk of our Galaxy, we can explore how different parts of the Galaxy were enriched, where star formation proceeded most rapidly, and whether there has been significant mixing of stars and gas through the disk. In general, older stars formed from material that had fewer metals and younger stars formed after more metals had been deposited into the interstellar medium. However, the relative dating of stars based on metallicity cannot easily be mapped to an absolute age, and the local age-metallicity relation cannot be used in different Galactic locations. The rate of metal enrichment depends strongly on the star formation rate. To use the full power of studying stellar atmosphere compositions across the Galaxy, we also need to determine absolute stellar ages. In this dissertation, I examine the ages and chemical abundances of stars in the solar neighborhood with the goal of extending this analysis to the larger APOGEE sample, which spans the full Milky Way disk. Through an independent analysis of optical spectra of APOGEE stars, I validate the individual chemical abundances measured by the near-infrared spectroscopic survey. The main stellar targets of APOGEE are red giant stars, for which the atmospheric parameters are degenerate with age. I develop a method of constraining the age distribution of a sample of giants, and determining individual ages to 0.1 dex, using a sample of local red giant stars with well measured distance. For the solar neighborhood, I find that the mean age of the sample is closely correlated with the abundance of [alpha]-elements in the stars, even at young ages. Using a sample of local subgiant stars, for which ages can be more precisely measured, I confirm this result for the solar neighborhood. I conclude that the method presented here for finding ages of red giant stars with known distances can robustly be applied to the full APOGEE sample for which distances will soon be available from the Gaia mission.

Evolution of Stars and Stellar Populations is a comprehensive presentation of the theory of stellar evolution and its application to the study of stellar populations in galaxies. Taking a unique approach to the subject, this self-contained text introduces first the theory of stellar evolution in a clear and accessible manner, with particular emphasis placed on explaining the evolution with time of observable stellar properties, such as luminosities and surface chemical abundances. This is followed by a detailed presentation and discussion of a broad range of related techniques, that are widely applied by researchers in the field to investigate the formation and evolution of galaxies. This book will be invaluable for undergraduates and graduate students in astronomy and astrophysics, and will also be of interest to researchers working in the field of Galactic, extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. comprehensive presentation of stellar evolution theory introduces the concept of stellar population and describes "stellar population synthesis" methods to study ages and star formation histories of star clusters and galaxies presents stellar evolution as a tool for investigating the evolution of galaxies and of the universe in general

IAU Symposium 262 presents reviews on the current understanding of the theories of stellar evolution, galaxy formation and galaxy evolution. It emphasises what we have learned in the past few years from massive surveys covering large portions of the sky (e.g. SDSS, HDF, UDF, GOODS, COSMOS). Several critical aspects of research on stellar populations deserve further effort in order to be brought in tune with other areas of astrophysical research. The next ten years will see the opening of major observatories that will increase the quality and quantity of astronomical data by orders of magnitude. The expected benefits from these instruments for the study of stellar populations are explored. This critical review of state of the art observational and theoretical work will appeal to all those working on stellar populations, from distant galaxies to local resolved galaxies and galactic star clusters.

The concept of Stellar Populations has played a fundamental role in astronomy in the last few decades. It was introduced by Walter Baade after he was able to resolve the Andromeda Nebula and its companions into stars when he used red-sensitive plates and realised that there were two fundamentally different Herzsprung-Russell diagrams in our and these nearby galaxies (common stars in the solar neighborhood versus globular clusters). This result was published in two papers in 1944 in volume 100 of the Astrophysical Journal. Subsequent research gave the concept a much firmer basis and at the famous Vatican Symposium of 1957 resulted in a general scheme of the concept and a working hypothesis for idea's on the formation and evolution of the Galaxy. This has been a guiding principle of studies of our and other galaxies for decades. Some years ago it seemed to us appropriate to commemorate Baade's seminal work in 1994, when it would have its 50-th anniversary, and to review its present status and also its role in contempory understanding. While we were in Leiden for an administrative committee, we discussed the matter again and over beers on October 29, 1991 we decided the take the initiative for an IAU Symposium on the subject during the 1994 IAU General Assembly in Den Haag, the Netherlands.

A comprehensive survey of stellar populations traces them from initial mass function and star formation histories through the chemical history of galaxies and their observed evolution.

A review of the new subject of extragalactic stellar astrophysics - for both graduate students and researchers working in astrophysics.

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