Dwarf Satellite Galaxies in the Dark Energy Survey

In recent years, wide-field imaging survey data from the Dark Energy Survey have been used to discover many new candidate ultra-faint dwarf galaxies in the nearby Universe, nearly doubling the number of known satellites. Detailed kinematic followup study of these objects has confirmed that many of these objects are indeed low luminosity, dark matter dominated dwarf galaxies, while chemical abundance analysis of their brightest member stars has revealed a surprising variety of chemical evolution histories in these objects. I will present recent results from the Dark Energy Survey and associated followup, and will discuss the implications for galaxy formation, star formation, and dark matter studies.