Astronomy Colloquium

I will discuss recent results from the ``Keck Baryonic Structure Survey'', a uniquesurvey of the high redshift universe optimized for sensitivity to both forming galaxies and the surrounding gas-phase circumgalactic and intergalactic baryons (and the exchange between the two)

at 2 < z < 3, when the relevant energetic processes (star formation, black hole accretion) were at their historical peak. I will emphasize how ``wholesale'' near-IR (rest-frame optical) spectroscopy of distant galaxies, made possible by the recent commissioning of the MOSFIRE

imaging spectrometer on the Keck 1 telescope,  vastly improves measurements of metallicity, kinematics, and physical conditions-- both within galaxies and in the surrounding intergalactic gas.