From 1950 to 1956, he held a professorship at the University of Redlands, where he continued his X-ray research. Baez took leave for a year to work with UNESCO in 1951, and stationed his family in Baghdad to establish the physics department and laboratory at Baghdad University. In 1959, Baez accepted a faculty position at MIT, and moved his family to the Boston area. Baez worked on physics education with the Physical Science Study Committee, in particular focused on producing films. In 1960, working with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, he developed optics for an X-ray telescope. Later that year he moved his family to Claremont, California, where he joined the faculty at Harvey Mudd College. From 1961 to 1967, he served as the first director of the science education program for UNESCO in Paris.