Jonathan Chapman serves as the Head of the School of Design in the College of Fine Arts. Named to the role in June 2026, Chapman is an internationally recognized design theorist and educator. He has been a member of the faculty since 2017, most recently serving as director of doctoral studies, where he led the school’s pioneering PhD in Transition Design, a program training designers to confront the most complex social and ecological challenges of our time.
Chapman enters the role with a long-term mandate and ambitions to match, intending to use his tenure to advance the school’s curriculum, deepen its research culture, and extend its impact across Pittsburgh, the region and the world.
His appointment as head, he said, is the deepening of a long relationship rather than the start of a new one.
“I’ve been part of this school since 2017, and in that time my respect for it has only deepened, not just for the institution and its rich history, but for the brilliant people who make it what it is today,” he said. “To be asked to lead a faculty and staff this talented and this committed is a genuine honor. I don’t take it lightly.”
The author of five books written at the intersection of design, human experience and sustainability, Chapman originated the concept of "Emotionally Durable Design" in his 2005 book of the same name. It is now a foundational reference for designers, educators and policymakers working on product longevity and the circular economy. The theory reframed sustainability around the relationships people form with the things they own, asking not how to make products last mechanically, but why we discard things that still work, a question with direct consequences for the waste our consumption leaves behind.
His most recent book, "Meaningful Stuff: Design that Lasts" (MIT Press, 2021), argues for an “experience-heavy, materials-light” approach that strengthens those relationships while dramatically reducing the material and carbon cost of what we make, and makes the case for why design, and the businesses and governments it serves, can and must lead the transition to a sustainable future.
That conviction has carried his work well beyond academia. As a consultant and strategic advisor, Chapman has helped global businesses, governments, and institutions, including CHANEL, Ford, Philips, the United Nations, NASA, and the UK House of Lords, accelerate the transition to a circular economy by designing products and services that last. His engagements span the field, from research and development on circular design strategy with corporate leadership to shaping the waste-reduction and right-to-repair policies that climate justice and a regenerative economy depend on.
At age 38, Chapman became the youngest person in the United Kingdom to achieve the rank of Full Professor in Design. New Scientist has described him as a “mover and shaker” and part of a “new breed of sustainable design thinker.” He has served as a Visiting Professor at the Politecnico di Milano and has advised graduate students at institutions including MIT, the University of Cambridge, the Royal College of Art, and KAIST.
Asked about the years ahead, Chapman is candid that the scale of his ambition is a deliberate response to the urgency of the moment, and unambiguous about what he expects of the designers the School will help form.
“Design has always been one of the most consequential forces shaping how we live, what we value, and what kinds of futures become possible, and that power comes with responsibility,” he said. “The designers we nurture here must be clear about their purpose: what they stand for, and what they stand against. The social and ecological challenges ahead of us are not abstract, and they are not distant. They demand a design education equal to their seriousness. My ambition is that we educate designers who choose to lead us out of these crises rather than deepen them, without hesitation, and who possess the strength of conviction and quality of craft required to deliver it.”
It is a vision that positions the school not as a follower of where design is heading, but as a place that sets its direction.
“Design is a world-making and world-breaking discipline,” he said. “It built the throwaway culture we are now trying to escape, and it is the only thing powerful enough to build us out of it. That is the work. That is why this school matters, and it is why I am so proud to lead it.”
