Prof. Gary Kesler

Biography of Gary Kesler

For the past four decades, I have been engaged in teaching undergraduate and graduate students in landscape architecture at two institutions: the University of Illinois-Urbana and Penn State University. In addition to faculty appointments, I have served as the BLA Program Coordinator, Associate Head, Interim Department Head, and Director of the East St. Louis Action Research Project at the University of Illinois, and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State. I have also been very active with the American Society of Landscape Architects—serving at the national level as Chair of the Council on Education and Vice President for Education and at the state level as Illinois Chapter Trustee—and with the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board as a member and Chair of the Board.

My teaching and research interests focus on topics of sustainable approaches to storm water management, cultural landscape management, and the history of the profession, with special interest in the history of design pedagogy at the University of Illinois. I was also an early pioneer of integrating computers into the landscape architecture curriculum and co-authored Computer-aided Site Design: Instructors Manual with Malcom Cairns, which received an Amoco Foundation Award and an Honor Award from the Illinois Chapter of ASLA. At the University of Illinois, I was the principal investigator for The Introduction of Advanced Microcomputer Workstations into the Teaching of Landscape Architecture, a research initiative funded through the IBM EXCEL grant program. Recognition of my work includes the ASLA President’s Medal (2007) and election to Fellow in both the American Society of Landscape Architects (1998) and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (2015).

I am a Registered Landscape Architect in Illinois and served as Chair of the State Registration Board from its beginning in 1990 until my departure for Penn State in 2008.