John Dunnigan is a designer, maker, author, and educator. His studio work spanning fifty years has been shown in more than one hundred exhibitions, including ten solo exhibitions, and is included in private and public collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the RISD Museum in Providence and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. Dunnigan’s furniture has been featured in dozens of publications, such as The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Boston Globe, in catalogues, and in books, including Edward S. Cooke’s New American Furniture (1989) and Witold Rybczynski’s Now I Sit Me Down (2016). In addition to maintaining his own studio practice since 1975, he was a partner in DEZCO Furniture Design LLC (2004–2010) and Windels Dunnigan (2018–2019), collaborations dedicated to sustainable practices in design for affordable production. He has published several essays on the cultural context of furniture and has lectured frequently on furniture as an expression of culture and identity.

A dedicated teacher, Dunnigan has been a member of the faculty at RISD for forty five years. In 1995, he was a co-founder of the Department of Furniture Design, where he had a leadership role in developing the curriculum, especially the Sophomore Studio, the History of Furniture, and the Senior Degree Project, where he mentored many students who have gone on to successful careers. Dunnigan was Department Head of Furniture Design for many years (2005–08 and 2010–17), and he served as Interim Dean of the Division of Architecture + Design in 2008–09. He is a former Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the RISD Museum (2015–18). Dunnigan currently holds the Schiller Family Endowed Chair in Furniture Design at RISD.