Diversity, equity, inclusion, and access

Prof. Kelley Lemon has been awarded a $100,000 grant through the Chancellor’s Call to Action Initiative, a commitment by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to focus the intellectual and scholarly talent of our university on two of the greatest challenges facing our society—racism and social injustice—and to seek new solutions. The Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program provides support for academic research and the expansion of community-based knowledge that advances the understanding of systemic racism and generationally embedded racial disparity.

Salcedo is the national undergraduate winner of the 2023 Fountain Scholarship, a prestigious award granted by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA). She received the award during a ceremony at the CELA Annual Conference in San Antonio, TX.

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.

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.