is an art historian, curator, and incoming Assistant Professor of History of Art at The Ohio State University. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute for its 2024–25 theme of Extinction. Aaron holds a Ph.D. in Visual Studies with an emphasis in Global Studies from the University of California, Irvine. In 2022, he was a Landhaus Predoctoral Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Aaron’s research examines contemporary art and visual culture concerning the interdependent legacies of U.S. settler colonialism and imperialism, specializing in the intersection of nationalism, class, and environmental politics. His dissertation, “Aloha ‘Āina as Medium: Land, Art, and Sovereignty in Post-Statehood Hawai‘i,” traced a counter-institutional lineage of visual culture advancing Hawaiian self-determination from the 1960s into the speculative future. Aaron’s work has been published in Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles, Radical History Review, Third Text, caa.reviews, Pacific Arts, and Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. He has taught courses in art history, film and media studies, and writing at Pitzer College; California State University, San Bernardino; and the University of California, Irvine.

In addition to his academic work, Aaron was Assistant Curator of the multi-venue exhibition Transformative Currents: Art and Action in the Pacific Ocean, part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide. He has worked in various curatorial capacities with the Orange County Museum of Art, UCI Langson Institute and Museum of California Art, Honolulu Museum of Art, and John Young Museum of Art.

Previously, Aaron was an advisory board member of the UCI Environmental Humanities Research Center and a co-organizer of the Climate Futures Collective. He recently worked as a Graduate Student Researcher with the Wildland-Urban Interface Climate Action Network and was a 2021 Humanities Out There Public Fellow with Orange County Environmental Justice, through which he continues to assist Friends of Puvungna.

Aaron is based in Tovaangar, the area now known as Los Angeles. He earned a B.A. (summa cum laude with Honors) in Art History with a certificate in Environmental Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His art practice is Hillside Slides.