National/International 

Pro-Democracy Rallies 

Saturday, April 5

https://handsoff2025.com

protest locations

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Welcome 

Here you'll find an overview of my work in landscape architecture and urban planning. I focus on contextual and ecology-informed design, inclusive green places in cities, and novel and restored ecosystems. I've collaborated with action research colleagues on resilience-building projects in south Asia, Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa—places that struggle with the negative impacts of climate change and globalization. I'm currently researching convivial greenstreets in urban cores and the state of professional landscape planting practices in the northeast US, with a focus on climate change and biodiversity. PDFs of most of my publications are here.

During my +8 years of consulting in Ontario I was fortunate to have some great mentors and plenty of talented role models from multiple professions: landscape architecture, urban and regional planning, applied ecology and botany, archaeology, architecture, economic analysis, soil science, and engineering (water resources / hydrology, civil, structural, lighting, geotechnical, coastal). It wasn't until I shifted to the academy that I realized interdisciplinarity wasn't unreservedly accepted as a good way to tackle problems. 

Since arriving at Penn State University in 1993, I've mostly taught advanced studio courses at multiple scales in both urban and regional contexts, as well as courses focusing on plants and applied ecology. Over the years I led or co-led over 40 public scholarship courses that made sure students got beyond campus to grapple with the messy and exhilarating 'real' world. From 2008 to 2023 my award-winning Pittsburgh Studio introduced advanced students to designing in and with underserved post-industrial neighborhoods. Free of conventional client-consultant approaches, and through the Penn State Center-Pittsburgh, our hosts invited us in as partners. These engaged studios were catalytic—they nurtured mutually beneficial reciprocal learning, genuine collaboration, and co-authorship that prompted local advocacy.

I retired from full-time work at Penn State in July, 2024 but intend to stay active on select research, collaborations and teaching stints.

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Contact me if you'd like a 

PDF copy of my curriculum vitae.

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Students, alums and colleagues:  If you are interested in my thoughts on some current issues, please see Dear Students. My main concern? French philosopher Albert Camus, speaking shortly after WWII to a New York City audience, said it well: 

“Faites attention, quand une démocratie est malade, le fascisme vient à son chevet mais ce n’est pas pour prendre de ses nouvelles.”

(“Take care, when a democracy is sick, fascism comes to its bedside. But it is not to get the news.”)

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