[3] His success earned him full NRC financial support for graduate studies at Bristol University, England, where he acquired his Ph.D. in solid state physics in 1952.

In 1973, Baird and his colleagues invented an important interference device[15][16] designed for the security of valuable documents, subsequently used on Canadian monetary bills thus establishing a new standard for currency anti-counterfeiting.

It was the quest of Baird and his colleagues to improve the accuracy of measurements of the speed of light, which ultimately provided the solid foundation for redefining the International Metre in 1982[17][18][19] and "their skilled pioneering work in laser frequency stabilization and measurement" which resulted in the following achievements: Baird held five patents, and has over fifty scientific and technical papers published in the fields of high-speed and aerial photography, interferometry, lasers and metrology, establishing him as one of North America’s foremost metrologists, and giving Canada a great reputation in this field.

[4] Baird was an active member of the Optical Society of America, of which he was a fellow and member/chairman of several technical groups and policy committees.

"[4] Baird was also a member of the Canadian Association of Physicists and chairman of its Optical Physics Division; president of the International Commission of Optics (IUPAP – a Division of UNESCO); a member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and chairman of its working group on wavelength standards; a member of the International Advisory Committee for the Definition of the Metre and steering committee chairman for the redefinition of the metre in 1982, as well as serving on advisory boards for several optical journals.