Abstract details

Red supergiants (RSG) provide most of the near-IR emission of many star forming galaxies. In these dusty environments, near-IR wavelengths sometimes provide the only direct access to photospheric light. We will summarize efforts made recently to improve the modelling of the spectra of young stellar populations at these wavelengths. Topics discussed will include: (i) a brief survey of current difficulties in this field and implications for issues like the IMF in young star clusters, (ii) the determination of stellar parameters from model fits to the near-IR spectra, using solar and RSG-specific surface abundances, (iii) predictions from population synthesis models using recent stellar spectra that extend through the near-IR range, (iv) applications to the spectra of clusters in M82.