  We assess the feasibility of detecting star formation in damped Lyman-alpha
systems (DLAs) at z>1 through near-infrared spectroscopy using the forthcoming
integral field units on 8m-class telescopes. Although their relation to
galaxies is not well established, high-z DLAs contain most of the neutral gas
in the Universe, and this reservoir is depleted with time - presumably through
star formation. Line emission should be an indicator of star formation
activity, but searches based on Lyman-alpha are unreliable because of the
selective extinction of this resonant UV line. Using more robust lines such as
H-alpha forces a move to the near-infrared at z>1. For line emission searches,
spectroscopy is more sensitive than imaging, but previous long-slit
spectroscopic searches have been hampered by the likelihood that any star
forming region in the DLA galaxy disk would fall outside the narrow slit. The
new integral field units such as CIRPASS on Gemini will cover sufficient solid
angles to intercept these, even in the extreme case of large galactic disks at
high redshift. On an 8m-class telescope, star formation rates of <1M_sun/yr
will be reached at z~1.4 with H-alpha in the H-band. Such star formation rates
are well below L* for the high-z Lyman-break population, and are comparable
locally to the luminous giant HII complexes in M101. It appears that
instruments such as CIRPASS on Gemini will have both the sensitivity and the
survey area to measure star formation rates in z>1 DLAs. These observations
will probe the nature of damped Lyman-alpha systems and address their relation
to galaxies.
