Fas Lebbie is a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Transition Design and a Teaching Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he teaches design studies and serves as an adjunct visiting professor at the SFK Art Academy. Fas has delivered lectures at MIT, Parsons School of Design, University of Utah, and Njala University in Sierra Leone. Over the past four years, he has taught Design and Entrepreneurship at both undergraduate and graduate levels. His Ph.D. research focuses on improving unsustainable practices of mineral extraction, use, and disposal by reimagining and redesigning better systems to ensure that their extraction, production, and utilization are restorative and regenerative, while exploring the role of African minerals in sustainable transitions to low-carbon futures and ultimately transitioning towards a post-extractive epoch.
Fas Lebbie has been practicing design for over nine years, working on various system-level projects developing products and services in healthcare, natural resources, fintech, public policy, civic, and big data technologies. Fas started in the social design space with his nonprofit, Fas Project. In consulting capacities, he founded the Thought Cab Design Agency and recently launched a social enterprise initiative called Root Studios —an open, collaborative co-design maker space. Currently, he manages a team of product designers at Meta and serves as a design advisor and mentor in the government innovation program at MIT GOV/LAB.