Professor Morten Kyndrup was the first AIAS executive and founding director of the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies from 2012-2019. Kyndrup is a dr. phil., professor (chair) of Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University since 1995. He was the director of the Research Program "Contemporary Aesthetic Theory: Current Functional Change of the Aesthetic" under The Danish Research Council for the Humanities, from 1993-98. In 1996 he was the director of the Centre for Cultural Research at Aarhus University. Kyndrup is the founder and director from 2001-11 of The Doctoral School of Arts and Aesthetics at Aarhus University. 

Kyndrup has held numerous positions of trust as chairman of The Nordic Society for Aesthetics (2007-2017), chairman of the Danish National Board for Doctoral Education (FUU) under the Danish Ministry of Science ans Education (2004-2007), Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Centre for Design Research under the Danish Ministry of Culture (2006-2012). Currently, Morten Kyndrup is a vice chairman of the board of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek since 2006, and acting chair of the Directors' Board of The New Carlsberg Foundation since 2006. During his time as executive director of AIAS, Morten Kyndrup has been active internationally as Steering Committee chairman and coordinator of the global network UBIAS, University-based Institutes for Advanced Study, from 2016-2018, and member of the UBIAS Steering Committee from 2018-2019. 

Professor Kyndrup has published more than 200 articles in journals etc. Authored books include Æstetik og Litteratur (1982), Det Postmoderne (1986), Framing and Fiction (1992), Riften og sløret − essays over kunstens betingelser (1998), Den æstetiske relation − sanseoplevelsen mellem kunst, videnskab og filosofi (2008).