Calling all UConn BSLA Alumni & Friends

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Hello! The UConn LA Program is looking to reconnect with its Alumni and build new friendships with the LA community in Connecticut. We are a young faculty now, honored to be a part of this wonderful program and to lead it into its next chapter. As part of this, we are wanting to learn more about its history, celebrate its alumni, and build better relationships with professionals across the State of Connecticut and beyond. We promise not to bombard your inboxes but we would love to be able to: send an annual newsletter about the program and its happenings; inform you of events at the school and at the ASLA conference; and ask for your support during our annual fundraiser, UConn Gives. If this is of interest, please fill out this quick form. Thank you! 

Dr. Sohyun Park receives CELA Faculty Service-Learning Award

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Dr. Sohyun Park receives CELA 2022 Faculty Service-Learning Award for her scholarship, teaching, and professional engagement devoted to the promotion of ecosystem services in cities and landscapes. Dr. Park’s research interest includes the pattern, function, and services of urban green spaces and their relevance to environmental sustainability and community resilience. With her research topics on urbanism, landscape, and ecology, she seeks to understand a unifying theme of “landscape” as a holistic socio-ecological system.

Congratulations Dr. Park!

UConn students take second place in the EPA rainwater challenge

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A team of UConn students, faculty, and staff advisors has won second place in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2021 Campus RainWorks Challenge. Their impressive project, called  Ecologic - L.I. Sound, presents a redesign of UConn's Avery Point Campus to address stormwater runoff and promote terrestrial and marine ecological health.

Congratulations to the team!

Please read more here

Professor Jill Desimini joins as Program Director

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Professor Jill Desimini joins UConn as Program Director and Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture. Professor Desimini's research investigates design strategies for abandoned landscapes and devalued property, with an increased focus on climate, social systems, and the longview. She is the author of Cyclical City: Five Stories of Urban Transformation (UVA Press, 2022), From Fallow: 100 Ideas for Abandoned Urban Landscapes, (ORO 2019) co-author of Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary (PAP 2016).

She also directs Harvard Climate Justice Design Fellowship guiding emerging leaders to generate data and design tools to support their own environmental justice advocacy, research, service, or education work in communities across the US. You can follow the project on Instagram and learn more about all the new CAHNR faculty here.

Dr. Julia Smachylo attends Urban Forests conference

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Dr. Smachylo recently attended the Urban Forests, Forest Urbanisms & Global Warming conference hosted by KU Leuven in Belgium. This three-day event brought together those working in the sciences, policy, and design to discuss the social and ecological challenges and possible futures surrounding our stewardship of forested environments. Dr. Smachylo’s presentation Legible Landscapes: Incentivizing Forest Knowledge and Action in Southern Ontario focused on shifts in environmental governance, the rise of forest management on private lands, and the extent to which incentive programs are activating landowners to embrace sustainable forest management.

For more information about the conference please visit:

https://architectuur.kuleuven.be/urban-forests-forest-urbanisms-global-warming