The timing of this meeting is particularly significant as astronomy enters a new era of time-domain surveys with the start of operations of the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory and its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).

RR Lyrae stars and Cepheids will play a central role in this new landscape. As precise distance indicators and tracers of stellar populations, these pulsating stars provide fundamental tools for studying the structure and formation history of the Milky Way and Local Group galaxies. Their study contributes directly to several of Rubin’s core science pillars, including mapping the structure of the Milky Way, exploring the variable sky, and improving our understanding of dark matter and dark energy through precision cosmology.

The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss the scientific opportunities enabled by Rubin and to prepare the community to fully exploit the unprecedented time-domain datasets that will soon become available. The meeting will also highlight the powerful synergies between Rubin observations, ground-based spectroscopic surveys, and major space missions such as Gaia (including the upcoming DR4 release) and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, whose complementary capabilities will significantly enhance studies of stellar populations, Galactic structure, and the cosmic distance scale.