  We present a comparison of theoretical predictions of dust continuum and
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission with new JWST observations in
three nearby galaxies: NGC 628, NGC 1365, and NGC 7496. Our analysis focuses on
a total of 1063 compact stellar clusters and 2654 stellar associations
previously characterized by HST in the three galaxies. We find that the
distributions and trends in the observed PAH-focused infrared colors generally
agree with theoretical expectations, and that the bulk of the observations is
more aligned with models of larger, ionized PAHs. These JWST data usher in a
new era of probing interstellar dust and studying how the intense radiation
fields near stellar clusters and associations play a role in shaping the
physical properties of PAHs.
