| Abstract: | The chemical abundances of large samples of extremely metal-poor (EMP) stars can be used to investigate metal-free stellar populations, supernovae, and nucleosynthesis as well as the formation and galactic chemical evolution of the Milky Way and its progenitor halos. However, current progress on the study of EMP stars is being limited by their faint apparent magnitudes. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has provided the mid-infrared photometry that is the critical component to a new, efficient metal-poor star selection that identifies bright metal-poor star candidates through their lack of molecular absorption near 4.6 microns. High-resolution follow up has revealed that 3.8% of WISE-selected candidates have [Fe/H] < -3.0 and 32.5% have -3.0 < [Fe/H] < -2.0, matching the yield of traditional dedicated surveys targeting UV spectral features. A survey based on this selection will more than double the number of known EMP stars with V < 12. In addition, the bulge is thought to be the most likely location in the Milky Way of any existing metal-free first-generation stars -- the so-called Population III stars. Unlike traditional techniques, the efficiency of this selection is undiminished in highly-reddened fields. This mid-infrared selection therefore provides the most promising technique ever devised to identify pristine Population III stars. Indeed, this selection has already identified the three most metal-poor stars known in the bulge. |