Aaron Bauer attended the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire from 2005 to 2009 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. He continued his studies at The Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester and received his Ph.D. in Optics in 2016. He has since joined the Institute of Optics full-time as a research engineer investigating the latest optical design topics and mentoring graduate students.

His research interests stem from his doctoral work where he focused on applying freeform surfaces to optical designs in a practical and efficient manner. His current work includes utilizing freeform surfaces to improve the performance and packaging of optical systems and metasurfaces to enable both form and function. Aaron is also involved in more conventional optical system design for a variety of applications. He received the 2020 Kevin P. Thompson Optical Design Innovator Award from OSA.