Gideon Kossoff is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, where he teaches and conducts research in transition design. He is a social ecologist/social theorist whose research focuses on the convergence between scientific holism and the ecological world view and a tradition of non-authoritarian social and political thinking that embraces such figures as Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs and social ecologist Murray Bookchin. He believes that the concepts developed within this tradition during the last century and a half are especially relevant to contemporary ecological, social and existential issues and can inform a more responsible approach to designing.