Faculty news

Landscape Architecture Professor William Sullivan is providing evidence that the power of green urban spaces is essential for public safety and mental health.

In a newly published article, faculty member Pollyanna Rhee examines how the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill shaped modern environmentalism, and what it reveals about whose environmental crises receive attention today.

Professor Pollyanna Rhee was featured in the Illinois News Bureau for her research and new book focused on how affluent communities shaped environmentalism in the U.S.

A pioneering study led by landscape architecture professors William Sullivan and Bin Jiang has found that greener neighborhoods are associated with significantly fewer fatal police shootings, highlighting the powerful role of urban green spaces in promoting public safety and community well-being. A new article by Jodi Heckel in the Illinois News Bureau dives into the research and findings.

Professor Pollyanna Rhee has a new published book that will be released May 2025 and an accompanying talk on April 28.

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.

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.

Congratulations to our colleague Prof. Dede Ruggles on having been named one of two inaugural Presidential Humanities and Social Science Chairs at the University of Illinois! Click here to read the University of Illinois News Bureau article.

The Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign invites applications for a full-time, tenure-stream position in Landscape Ecologies.

The Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign invites applications for a full-time, tenure-stream position in Landscape Engineering and Construction.

In this online lecture, O’Shea will discuss recent projects by his practice, Hinterlands, that exemplify the firm’s commitment to radically rethinking the contemporary urban realm through the medium of landscape.

Led by Prof. Mary Pat McGuire, the initiative is part of a growing movement to transform underused paved areas, such as empty parking lots, into vibrant, green, community spaces.

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.

Prof. Kelley Lemon and PhD in Landscape Architecture alumnus Dongying Li are two of the twelve faculty Research Fellows selected to study high-performing landscape projects in the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s 2022 Case Study Investigation program.

We are thrilled to announce that our colleague Prof. Aneesha Dharwadker, who holds a joint appointment in the Illinois School of Architecture and our Department of Landscape Architecture, has been awarded a 2022 New Faculty Teaching Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architecture Students!

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.

On August 23, University of Illinois President Tim Killeen awarded the Presidential Medallion to our colleague Prof. Bill Sullivan and 27 other key leaders of the university system’s COVID-19 response effort.

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.

We are pleased to announce that Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr (Oxford University Press, 2020) by Prof. Dede Ruggles, Debra L. Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture, has won the Nancy Lapp Book Award from the American Schools of Oriental Research.