Alumni news

The spring's march newsletter by the head of the Department of Landscape Architecture, David L. Hays, updates alumni and friends on current activities within the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Landscape Architecture department. It covers the midterms, students' project work during spring break, and highlights recent events such as the 2024 All-Department Charrette focused on climate resilience. The newsletter also celebrates achievements and recognitions of department members, including alumni and faculty. Additionally, it announces upcoming events like the CELA 2024 Annual Conference in St. Louis.

On Monday, July 31, 2023, 12:00pm-1:00pm ET, the New York City-based CSU: The Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization will be hosting an online talk by Eileen Dancuart (MLA Illinois 2002) focused on Bicentennial Park, a project she completed in November 2022 in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru.

As Founding Director of the practice Matéricos Periféricos, Ph.D. student Ana Valderrama (MLA, Illinois, 2009) and her collaborators have received a 2022 Inclusion Award from the New York City Architecture Biennial. Their project, "Industrial District," includes a series of practices and two buildings co-constructed with the communities they serve.

We are pleased to announce that alum Bruce Dvorak has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Three members of our department community—faculty member Kelley Lemon, current student Ana Valderrama, and alum Sonal Mithal—have been awarded prestigious grants from the Graham Foundation.

Docomomo US recently welcomed our PhD in Landscape Architecture alumna Rachel Leibowitz as one of its two new board members.

This evening, Prof. Beronda L. Montgomery delivered the second annual Terry Harkness "Plants in Design" Lecture in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois.

MLA alumna Neha Rajora recently designed a zen garden at the Ahmedabad Management Association in Ahmedabad, India.

LA+CREATURE—the third in the LA+ international design ideas competition series—asked how we can use design to open our cities, our landscapes, and our minds to a more symbiotic existence with other creatures.

The Department of Landscape Architecture is pleased to announce that Kelley Lemon will be joining our faculty as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, to begin in August 2021.

We are very pleased to announce that Jie Hu—Director and Chief Designer of the Research Center for Landscape Architecture at the Beijing Tsinghua Tongheng Urban Planning and Design Institute (THUPDI) and Vice-President of THUPDI overall—will be joining our faculty beginning this August 2020 to chair our new Master of Sustainable Urban Design program.

Featured in this year’s international garden festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire, France—“Jardins de paradis” (“Gardens of Paradise”)—is work by BLA alumna Haemee Han, co-founder and public art director of Jaemee Studio.

We are thrilled to announce that Susan Jacobson is this year’s recipient of the Alumni Medal from the Department of Landscape Architecture!

Early last month, our Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois Provost Andreas Cangellaris, Dean of Fine and Applied Arts Kevin Hamilton, Landscape Architecture Foundation CEO Barbara Deutsch, and Morton Arboretum Landscape Architect Susan Jacobson gathered to celebrate the investiture of Professor D. Fairchild Ruggles as the first Debra L. Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture.