2019 Annual WASLA Conference

Greater Tacoma Convention Center, March 22, 2019

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Digging Deeper: The Role of the PhD in the Landscape Architecture Profession

Description:

This panel addresses the role of the PhD degree for landscape architects and the part scholarly research plays in connecting academia and practice. Four PhD landscape architects from the interdisciplinary program in the Built Environment at the University of Washington discuss their respective paths from landscape practitioners to the PhD and the ways in which their collaborative work links new research across disciplines to applied problems in landscape architecture practice and teaching the next generation of professionals. This session shares diverse research in sustainable design and climate resilience, One Health, community-based planning, historiography, digital practices and public space. We examine methods such as transdisciplinary action research, site specific case studies, archival research, and mixed methods that contribute innovative strategies and knowledge to advance the profession. We discuss how research can be shared to help broaden and deepen knowledge by spanning various vantage points to build the capacity of the field of landscape architecture to deal with the complex global and local social and ecological issues of today.

Speaker Bios:

Ken Yocom, Associate Professor + Department Chair, University of Washington

Ken is a graduate (2007) of the PhD in the Built Environment (BEPhD) program at the University of Washington and is now an Associate Professor and Chair with the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington - Seattle. He also serves on the steering committee of the BEPhD program actively seeking to integrate PhD-level teaching and learning into design and planning curricula. Specific to his interests, Ken's teaching, research, and practice explores the integration of ecological and systems thinking into design research and urban planning.

Leann Andrews, Director, Traction; Affiliate Assistant Professor, UW

Leann graduated from the BEPhD program in 2018 and is now a Director of Traction and Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Washington. As a licensed landscape architect and PhD, Leann works in the cracks between practice and academia, leading research and design activism projects that leverage design to measurably improve human and ecological health for neglected communities.

Sara Jacobs, University of Washington PHD Candidate

Sara Jacobs is a practicing landscape designer and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Washington. She is a designer, historian, and theorist whose research draws on urban environmental history, political ecology, and visual representation to consider how particular ways of knowing condition our understanding of urban landscapes. Her research and teaching uses historical scholarship to investigate the intersections of design and theory to produce in scholarly work that contributes to shaping contemporary design practice. Sara has worked as a landscape designer at SCAPE Landscape Architecture, where she helped to lead landscape-scale urban design and waterfront projects, and at OPSYS Landscape, where she used mapping and visual representation as a medium for revealing environmental, political, and infrastructural intersections. Sara has an MLA from Harvard University and BA in Architecture and Conservation Resource Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jenn Engelke, BE PhD student

Jenn Engelke, PLA, ASLA, is a licensed landscape architect and currently a PhD student in the interdisciplinary program of the built environment at University of Washington. Her research interests focus on ecological design and restoration in urban areas, specifically exploring the interaction between people and ecological environments. Jenn’s private practice experiences in Austin, TX and Chicago, IL involved projects spanning from community planning to ecological restoration and ranging in scale from 30,000 acre planning efforts and 700+ acre ecosystem restorations to residential settings. Additionally, she led community engagement efforts that focused on enhancing bird habitats in small parks. Jenn completed her MLA at Kansas State University.

Elizabeth Umbanhowar, University of Washington Interdisciplinary PhD Program in the Built Environment

Elizabeth Umbanhowar is a lecturer at the University of Washington and a licensed landscape architect in Washington State where she has specialized in large-scale public infrastructure, active transportation, urban design, public involvement, and habitat restoration. She is currently a PhD student at UW and investigates how digital practices and media technologies influence our relationship to outdoor environments in terms of health, social cohesion, valuation, equity and access.

Learning Objectives:

Discover innovative research contributions in landscape history, sustainability, public health, community-based design, and digital practices
Learn approaches for conducting and disseminating long-term research questions and findings in landscape architecture
Gain insights into ways to improve collaboration, communication and capacity between research, teaching, practice, and working with those outside the design disciplines
Find opportunities to engage scholarly research and work with PhDs to strengthen the field, its traditions, visibility and global impacts in the age of climate change