Dr Keir Williams is an educator, designer, and creative technologist whose work focuses on participatory design, inclusion, and the social role of creative technologies. He is Course Leader for MA Design for Data Visualisation and BA Service Design at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Keir has over twenty years’ experience working across higher education, the arts, and industry in the UK and internationally. His teaching, research, and creative practice explore how digital, material, and performative technologies can support learning, advocacy, play, and collective sense-making. He works through participatory and socially engaged methods, often collaborating with communities and organisations to address complex social, cultural, and environmental issues.
He has written, led, and revalidated undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in design, innovation, and creative technology, including Digital Media BSc (UK and Hong Kong), Childhood Studies with Innovation MSc (University of Bristol), and Multimedia Technology BSc (Oman). Prior to joining UAL, he was a founding member of the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Bristol, where he taught from its first cohort and led first-year undergraduate teaching across transdisciplinary programmes.
Keir’s research includes EPSRC-funded MSc and PhD work at Queen Mary University of London on participatory design and creative technologies in Special Educational Needs education. More recent engaged research has included projects with former prisoners, looked-after children, refugees in the Norwegian Arctic, entrepreneurs in Nigeria, and communities exploring financial resilience. He currently supervises doctoral research in inclusive venture capital and neurodivergent design.
His creative practice spans sound, performance, creative coding, installation, print, service design, and AI-informed systems. His work has been exhibited and commissioned internationally by organisations including TATE, MoMA PS1, ICA, Glastonbury Festival, We The Curious, the British Council, Red Bull F1, and touretteshero.
Keir is a founding member of Live Art Digital, the live art duo chris+keir, and the reggae collective Jam Jah Sound. He is also a keen springboard, platform and cliff diver.