One of the
most important open issues in astronomy is the assembly of galactic disks. My
group and I approach this subject from an observational perspective, tracing
the kinematic evolution of star-forming galaxies since a redshift of 2, or over
the last 10 billion years of the universe. I will discuss recent results that show the progressive (and
mass-dependent) assembly of disk galaxies over this time period. These results strongly challenge the
traditional analytic model of galaxy formation and provide an important
benchmark for simulations. I will also demonstrate techniques we have developed to decipher observations of the and morphologies of high redshift galaxies using
hydrodynamic simulations.