Star formation is one of the fundamental processes of

astrophysics. Yet in spite of much progress in recent years,

many of the elements of the physics governing star formation remain uncertain,

including the role played by magnetic fields. Depending on their strengths, magnetic fields may strongly affect the formation and evolution of dense molecular clouds from which stars form, and appear to be essential in transferring angular momentum outward so that protostars and planets may form. This talk will describe the observational techniques that are available to study the role of magnetic fields in star formation regions, review the current state of the observational results, and briefly discuss possible future developments.

Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) is an ongoing integral field spectroscopy survey carried out as part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-IV.

Started in the fall of 2014, MaNGA is utilizing multiple hexagonal fiber bundles fed to the BOSS spectrograph on the 2.5m Sloan Telescope to study the internal structure and formation history of roughly 10,000 nearby galaxies

spanning a wide range in mass, type, and environment. Fiber bundles of various diameters ranging from 12 arcsec to 32 arcsec are used to match the apparent size distribution of galaxies. Most target galaxies will be covered out to 1.5-2.5 effective radii with a spatial resolution of 1-2kpc. Such spatially resolved spectroscopy beyond the central fibers covered by previous

generation of SDSS can provide a great deal of information about each galaxy. I will give an overview of science goals of the survey, discuss the hardware design, survey sample design, observing strategy, and the data quality of MaNGA.

I will also showcase some interesting examples from the 1400 galaxies we have already observed.