Protoplanetary disks represent the birth environment of the mature exoplanets now known by the thousands. Over the past decade, several major instrumentation breakthroughs (such as HST, "extreme" adaptive optics, ALMA and now JWST) have led to a slew of high-resolution observations that shed crucial light on the structure of these disks and on the processes at play in forming these planets. In this talk, I will illustrate how a unique observing point of view, when disks are seen almost exactly edge-on, provides both a much less biased view of the demographics of protoplanetary disks, and a unique opportunity to probe their radial and vertical structure. In particular, I will demonstrate how we have used high-resolution observations to quantify the degree of settling of planet-forming pebbles and smaller dust grains, to directly image photoevaporative winds emanating from the surface of some disks, and to identify dust-poor outer regions in several disks.

recording: www.youtube.com/watch