  I report on observations of the z=0.01 dwarf galaxy SBS1543+593 which is
projected onto the background QSO HS1543+5921. As a star-forming galaxy first
noted in emission, this dwarf is playing a pivotal role in our understanding of
high-redshift galaxy populations, because it also gives rise to a Damped Lyman
Alpha system. This enabled us to analyze, for the first time, the chemical
abundance of $\alpha$ elements in a Damped Lyman Alpha galaxy using both,
emission and absorption diagnostics. We find that the abundances agree with one
another within the observational uncertainties. I discuss the implications of
this result for the interpretation of high-redshift galaxy observations. A
catalog of dwarf-galaxy--QSO projections culled from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey is provided to stimulate future work.
