Dr. Mark Breitenberg is the Special Assistant to the President of Art Center and Co-founder and Executive Chairman of The Design Accelerator, Inc. He leads Art Center’s new ventures in business and entrepreneurship, plus programs in China. Prior to this post he served as the Provost of California College of the Arts in San Francsico. 

Up until 2007, Dr. Breitenberg was the Dean of Humanities and Design Sciences at Art Center College of Design. His areas of responsibility included academic curriculum, business curriculum, design research, international partnerships, and transdisciplinary study. In this position, he created a new and innovative liberal arts and sciences curriculum to complement the school’s studio-based programs. From 2004 to 2007 he was dean of undergraduate education at Art Center, leading 12 academic departments and playing a significant role in student recruitment, fundraising, and corporate sponsorship. His previous positions at Art Center included chair of Liberal Arts and Sciences and instructor in both the Fine Art Graduate Program and Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Prior to joining Art Center he held teaching positions at Otis College of Art and Design (1998–2000) and Swarthmore College (1988–1994). He also worked in the film industry as an independent writer, producer, and story analyst for Bedford Falls, Castle Rock Productions, Columbia Pictures, Disney, Parkwood Pictures, and other companies.

Breitenberg was president-elect of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid), an organization with more than 160,000 members worldwide. His other affiliations include Tecnológico de Monterrey Graduate School of Design in Mexico, where he serves on the advisory board and is an adjunct faculty member; and the Design High School, a charter school in Pasadena, where he is a board member. His published works include a book on Shakespeare and his contemporaries titled Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England. He is the author of many published articles on innovation and design education; his scholarly work on Shakespeare, literary history, and gender has also been widely published.

Breitenberg holds a PhD in literature and critical theory from the University of California, San Diego. He completed his undergraduate studies at William and Mary, earning a BA in government.