The way we do science in general, and astronomy in particular, is changing rapidly.

I will talk about the future of astronomy on the verge of the LSST survey. As the LSST Science Collaborations Coordinator, I will discuss how the whole science community is preparing for this revolution: the largest astronomical survey ever planned, which starting in 2022 will image the entire southern hemisphere sky once every 3 nights to a depth and spatial resolution that approach that of the Hubble Space Telescope. I will pay particular attention to what LSST can do for the transient sky, and what the transient community needs to do to prepare for the LSST era.

Further, I will discuss how astronomy is infiltrating other sciences, and how the skills of astronomers can be put to the service of society in Urban Science, an emerging discipline. I will describe the work of the CUSP Urban Observatory, where we use astronomical techniques to image and study city lightscapes to infer about the sociology, ecology, and economy of the city microcosm, from energy consumption, to pollution, to human circadian rhythms.