Ryan Bauer has served Congregation Emanu-El since 2005. Since joining the clergy he has assumed responsibility for overseeing the conversion program and has served on the Rabbinic Advisory Councils of Shalom Bayit and the Northern California Rabbis Task Force for Civil Discourse. In addition, Rabbi Bauer is a regular faculty member at URJ Camp Newman. Rabbi Bauer was ordained by the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles in 2007. In his final year of rabbinical school, Rabbi Bauer’s academic research focused on exploring Hasidic views of how one cleaves to the divine. Prior to rabbinical school, Rabbi Bauer completed his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied Psychology with an emphasis in Political Economies of Industrialized Societies. As part of his undergraduate studies, Rabbi Bauer studied at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem where he assisted with a Fulbright research project that examined violence in Jewish and Palestinian schools. Rabbi Bauer has also served as a chaplain intern at UCLA Medical Center, has worked as the Co-Director of Teen programs at the Center for Jewish Living and Learning in Oakland, and has written for the Jewish Iranian newspaper in Los Angeles. When Rabbi Bauer is not at the shul or with his family, he enjoys surfing or swimming in the bay with the South End Rowing Club.