"Young massive stellar clusters as astrophysical probes"
 
Star clusters have long been used as astrophysical probes to study various
aspects of the universe; from stellar evolution to Galactic structure and even
the formation of galaxies themselves.  The classical view that open and
globular clusters are fundamentally different objects has been destroyed by the
discovery of hundreds of young globular clusters in nearby ongoing galactic
mergers.  In this talk I will review the present state of knowledge of these
clusters, and will discuss two recent studies that used clusters as probes.
The first, on the interacting Antennae galaxies, uses clusters to understand
the star formation history of the merger, and places strict constraints on how
clusters are born, evolve and are destroyed.  The second study explores
intermediate age clusters in the LMC that appear to have multiple generations
of stars within them.  We suggest, instead, that only a single population is
present, and that stellar rotation is the cause of the observed anomalies.