Aaron Huey builds campaigns that create real-world change, by any medium necessary.
For over twenty years he has worked as a visual storyteller for National Geographic, with more than 40 features for Nat Geo magazines, on environmental conservation, cultural preservation, and social justice. His work spans photography, street art, immersive installations, augmented and virtual reality, community-driven platforms, and emerging digital technologies, adapting to the needs of each audience and the landscape they inhabit. His early storytelling on social media was instrumental in National Geographic's digital growth, where, working with a small team of colleagues, he helped expand their Instagram presence from hundreds of thousands of followers in 2011 to over 200 million a decade later.
As the founder of Amplifier.org, he has directed campaigns with thousands of artists on social, environmental, and public health issues, including the 'We The People' project with longtime collaborator Shepard Fairey.
Huey refined his storytelling approach through three fellowships at Stanford (Knight, d.School Media Fellow, and Starling Lab), where the Hasso Plattner School of Design became a constant home and shaped how he builds both stories and their containers.
He has won three Webby Awards. The first, for a VR experienceinside Bears Ears National Monument, built while the monument's boundaries were under attack. And two more in 2026 for ENCODED, an unsanctioned augmented reality exhibition staged inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art with 17 Indigenous artists, which took Best Use of Augmented Reality and Best Community Engagement.