Meet the 2015 National Olmsted Scholar and Finalists: The Graduate Students
The Landscape Architecture Foundation’s Olmsted Scholars Program is the premier national award and recognition program for landscape architecture students. The program honors students with exceptional leadership potential who are using ideas, influence, communication, service, and leadership to advance sustainable design and foster human and societal benefits.
Here, we showcase the 2015 graduate student winner and finalists, who were announced last spring. An independent jury of leaders in the landscape architecture profession selected them from a group of 43 graduate students nominated by their faculty for being exceptional student leaders. The winner receives the $25,000 graduate prize and each finalist receives $1,000. All of the 2015 Olmsted Scholars will be honored at LAF’s Annual Benefit in Chicago on November 6.
National Olmsted Scholar Grant Fahlgren of the University of British Columbia
Grant discusses the 7 generations philosophy of his Anishinabae ancestors, traditional ecological knowledge, and how it applies to landscape architecture, using the Fraser River watershed in the Cascadia Bioregion as an example.
Finalist Andrea Johnson of the City College of New York
Andrea discusses her interest in how design can empower communities that have historically been marginalized, including her work on land intervention strategies to improve quality of life in low-income communities in South Africa.
Finalist Teresa Pereira of Temple University
Teresa discusses her goal to expand the interdisciplinary boundaries of landscape architecture by utilizing filmmaking to address experiential, ecological, and social components of landscape analysis.
Finalist Harris Trobman of the University of Maryland
Harris showcases a recently completed design-build project at a school campus for 500 children in northern Haiti and discusses his current action-oriented research as a Green Infrastructure Specialist at the University of the District of Columbia.
