Aaron is a biophysicist and Founder and Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program, a civic science platform built to strengthen how societies understand science, engage with scientific knowledge, and use evidence in collective decision-making.
Founded in 2019, Science & Society operates across three integrated functions: Public Understanding, Civic Engagement, and Decision Systems. The program works through film, storytelling, public convenings, youth initiatives, international advisory processes, and practitioner-focused reports to strengthen the civic conditions through which science is supported, trusted, and sustained.
- Public Understanding focuses on how scientific work is explained, interpreted, and trusted in public life. Major efforts include The Endless Frontier, a feature documentary that premiered at the 2026 DC/DOX Film Festival and examines how the American research system works in practice and what is at stake as public investment and public trust weaken; INFODEMIC, an international documentary series broadcast on PBS and Link TV examining misinformation and public health; and coordinated body of convenings and publications on how trust in science is formed, challenged, and strengthened across audiences.
- Civic Engagement expands meaningful participation in science through community connection, youth pathways, and public-facing opportunities to engage with research. Work in this area includes Our Future Is Science, a youth science initiative recognized as a Falling Walls Engage Winner, along with broader efforts in informal STEM learning and public participation that connect scientific opportunity with local communities and future leadership.
- Decision Systems strengthens how scientific knowledge informs leadership, governance, and institutional action. Major initiatives include the Aspen Global Congress on Scientific Thinking & Action, which convened leaders from more than 50 countries to develop adaptable frameworks for evidence-informed policymaking; In Favor of Pure Science, a global comparative initiative examining how nations sustain basic research; and cross-sector convenings that connect scientific institutions, philanthropy, industry, and public leadership around complex societal challenges.
Before founding Science & Society, Aaron was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow and a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow at Rockefeller University, where his research focused on cell and developmental biology. His publications have appeared in Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS, Physical Review Letters, and Nautilus. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and American culture studies from Washington University in St. Louis, a master’s degree in the history of science from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and a doctorate in physics from Yale University.
Aaron serves on fellowship and selection committees, including the Rhodes Scholarship, for which he is one of 16 U.S. District Secretaries responsible for leading regional selection processes. Earlier in his career, he founded Rockefeller University’s first LGBTQ+ scientist organization and organized the first scientist contingent in the New York City Pride March, work centered on strengthening the institutional capacity of science to draw from and serve a broad range of communities and talent.
