Leighton Beaman is a designer, writer and educator. His design work, research and writing focus on the history, discourse, and speculative future of design technologies, and their implications for material culture, environmental responsibility, and socially conscious design practices.Leighton is the Co-founder of GAC, a design-based nonprofit working in East Africa and North America. GAC was named a Design Game Changer by Metropolis Magazine in 2020, and has received a number of awards and recognitions for their work, including from the American Institute of Architects, Dezeen, EDRA, and the Architectural League of NY He is also the Co-Founder of Alterior Office, a research-based multi-modal design studio which works across spaces, objects, systems, and processes. The work of Alterior Office has been featured in exhibitions and publications internationally.Leighton is an Associate Professor of Design at Cornell University, where he teaches courses in the College of Human Ecology. Prior to his appointment at Cornell, he taught at Harvard University, Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Virginia, and the University of Texas. As a writer, Leighton has contributed to a number of publications including Architectural Record, Cite, II Journal, IntAR Journal, Issue, and the Technology Architecture + Design Journal. He is currently an editor of the International Journal of Architectural Computing. Leighton has been named a MacDowell Fellow, an American Institute of Architects Emerging Practitioner, a University of Virginia Teaching Fellow in Architecture, and was recently a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome.