Multiplicity is ubiquitous in stars and the remnants they leave behind. While eruptive mass transfer has profound impacts on their long-term evolution, the resulting processes are commonly enshrouded in dust produced by mass outflows, preventing direct observational constraints at optical/X-ray/UV bands. In pursuit of a complete census of the role of accretion outbursts in stellar and black hole evolution, I will present the WISE Transients Project -- a new effort aimed at a complete census of the variable mid-infrared sky using 15 years of data from the NEOWISE survey. With systematic selection from millions of new infrared variables, I will highlight recent and ongoing work revealing i) a missed population of dusty stellar mergers in our Galactic backyard, ii) new insights into the fiery fates of close planetary worlds, iii) the birth of black holes from dusty eruptions of stripped stars and iv) eruptive pre-supernova mass loss revealed in the dusty aftermath of nearby supernovae. I will end with an overview of the exciting upcoming decade of ground-based infrared surveys that is poised to finally reveal a complete roadmap from stellar birth to the stellar graveyard.
Kishalay completed his undergraduate degree in Physics at the Indian Institute of Science. He obtained his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Caltech in 2021 under the mentorship of Mansi Kasliwal. Currently, he is a NASA Einstein and MIT Kavli Institute postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2025, he will join as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy at Columbia University and the Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City. He specializes in wide-field imaging surveys to uncover stellar explosions across our Galaxy and beyond. His research work includes observational time domain astronomy and leading large programs on the largest ground-based (Keck, Gemini, Magellan) and space-based (NEOWISE, JWST) telescope to study transients ranging from nearby novae and supernovae to tidal disruption events.