Clifford Pearson is the director of the University of Southern California’s American Academy in China and a lecturer at the USC School of Architecture. From 1989 to 2015, he was an editor at Architectural Record, serving as deputy editor-in-chief for the last 10 years. He oversaw the magazine’s coverage of Asia, acting as editor-in-charge of its China edition, 2008-2013, and its annual Pacific Rim section, 1993-1997. At the magazine, he wrote on a broad range of topics—from individual projects such as the MAXXI museum in Rome by Zaha Hadid and the new Whitney Museum by Renzo Piano to essays on school design and housing.

He serves as a director of Asia Design Forum, a nonprofit think tank that organizes events and generates dialogue among the design community and the general public. He is the author of Indonesia: Design and Culture, published by the Monacelli Press in 1998, and the editor of Modern American Houses, published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in 1996 and reissued in 2005.

In 2003, he received a Media Fellowship from the U.S – Japan Foundation and spent two months in Japan examining “Technology and Tradition in Contemporary Japanese Architecture.” In 2004 and 2006, he was the co-curator of the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Mr. Pearson holds a master’s degree in architectural history from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in urban studies from Cornell University.