A nearby galaxy perspective on interstellar dust properties and their
  evolution
  Interstellar dust is a key physical ingredient of galaxies, obscuring star
formation, regulating the heating and cooling of the gas, and building-up
chemical complexity. In this manuscript, I give a wide review of interstellar
dust properties and some of the modern techniques used to study it. I start
with a general introduction presenting the main concepts, in molecular and
solid-state physics, required to understand the contemporary literature on the
subject. I then review the empirical evidence we currently use to constrain
state-of-the-art dust models. Follows a long discussion about our current
understanding of the grain properties of nearby galaxies, with an emphasis on
the results from spectral energy distribution modeling. The following chapter
presents dust evolution at all scales. I review the different microphysical
evolution processes, and the way they are accounted for in cosmic dust
evolution models. I give my take on the origin of interstellar dust in galaxies
of different metallicities. The last chapter focusses on methodology. I give an
introduction to the Bayesian method and compare it to frequentist techniques. I
discuss the epistemological consequences of the two approaches, and show why
the field of interstellar dust requires a probabilistic viewpoint. I end the
manuscript with a summary of the major breakthroughs achieved in the past
decade, and delineate a few prospectives for the next decade.
