Dr. Ayer received his PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering with a minor degree in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin (UW)- Madison.  He was a guest lecturer of health systems engineering and engineering economic analysis at the university from 2006-2010. 

His research interests include stochastic optimization, completely and partially observable Markov decision processes, medical decision making, healthcare operations management, artificial intelligence, decision support systems, service operations, and public policy.

Dr. Ayer is the recipient of various awards including the INFORMS Seth Bonder Scholarship, Society of Medical Decision Making Lee Lusted Award, finalist in INFORMS Doing Good with Good OR competition, Radiology Society of North America Best Informatics Session Presentation Award, and INFORMS Best Interactive Session Award. His works have been published or accepted for publication in Operations Research, Cancer, RadioGraphics, Imaging in Medicine, and Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science.