Zeke Leonard is the Associate Director of the Syracuse University School of Design, as well as being the coordinator of the School of Design’s First Year Experience.  His research involves the roles that craft practice, social responsibility and environmental stewardship in contextually-relevant design and fabrication practices.  Central to his work is the re-purposing of discarded materials and objects in ways that inspire conversation and call communities to action.  Zeke regularly partners with community groups and organizations to find ways to put local resources to better use. 

He has written about his research-based design practices in ‘The Interior Architecture Theory Reader’ and has published in journals as varied as Int/AR: Intervention and Adaptive Reuse and Anthropology News.  He previously taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and New York University, and is a regular visiting instructor at institutions including the Haystack Mountain School of Craft and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.  Examples of his wood work are in the collections of the Worker’s Arts and Heritage Society in Hamilton, Ontario, The Mystic Seaport Museum, and the Maine Culinary Archive.  Zeke holds an MFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA in Set Design from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.