Starting from the contraction of the diffuse cloud, the fragmentation of the dense molecular cloud, to the birth of the young stellar objects, star formation processes shape the chemical and kinematic structure of the entire galaxies. Some of the young stars are surrounded by a disk of gas and dust, which is responsible for creating planetary environments. When the stars reach the end of their lives, heavy elements from their mass loss refill the interstellar medium (ISM), and will be incorporated in future generations of stars and planets.

Modern astronomical instruments, with improving capability, are now revealing to us the complexity of matter in the ISM. However, some fundamental questions are still mysteries. How, when, and where are the molecules formed, excited, and stored in the ISM? How do they cycle through the formation, evolution, and death of the star and planetary system? What are the similarities and diversity between the exoplanetary environment and our terrestrial environment? How universal are the building blocks of life?

Our department is now leading and actively engaging in several multi-wavelength observational surveys, covering a broad range of star and planet-forming regions, from dense molecular clouds, prestellar and protostellar objects, protoplanetary disks, to exoplanets and debris disk of the white dwarfs. To characterize the chemical and physical properties of these regions, we push the available dynamic range, angular and spectral resolutions of the world-leading ground-based telescopes and space-borne observatories to their limits. We also incorporate our observation results with theoretical models and dedicated laboratory experiments by close collaboration with international astrochemistry and exoplanet teams, to constrain the dynamics and chemistry in the star and planet-forming processes.