Highlights from the heavy-ion program in STAR

The experiments at RHIC have produced convincing evidence that strongly interacting partonic matter is created in the collisions of heavy ions. The unique flexibility of RHIC to collide different nuclear species over a wide range of collision energies together with STAR’s wide acceptance and particle identification are ideally suited for systematic exploration of the properties of this QCD matter. STAR collaboration has successfully completed the Beam Energy Scan, program focused on searching for the onset of the QGP signatures and studying the nature of the phase transition, indicating that the region of interests for critical point and the first-order phase transition is within the reach of RHIC experiments. Moreover, with its two newly installed detector upgrades, STAR has launched a comprehensive heavy-flavor program which allows high precision measurements of the properties of the partonic matter