"Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era"

The launch of the Swift satellite has marked the beginning of a new era in Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) science. I will firstly review the current status of GRB observations, and our understanding of their progenitors for the class of long bursts. I will then discuss our expectations for how GRB data during the Swift era will improve our understanding of the properties of the progenitors of long GRBs, shed light on the nature of short bursts, and impact several areas of cosmology. In particular, I will discuss how GRBs can be used to trace the evolution of the mean density of the medium with redshift and the properties of dust in high-z galaxies. Dectection of GRBs at very high redshifts can help set constraints on the small-scale power spectrum of density fluctuations.