2013 Olmsted Winners Announced

   


Although the Olmsted Scholars Program, the premier national award and recognition program for landscape architecture students is in its sixth year, this is the first year that LAF has offered separate recognition and awards for graduate and undergraduate students.

The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) has announced the 2013 National Olmsted Scholar recipients; Leann Andrews, a graduate student at the University of Washington and McKenzie Wilhelm, an undergraduate at Ohio State University.

Leann, graduating in June with a Master of Landscape Architecture with a Certificate in Global Health from the University of Washington plans to use her $25,000 prize to return to Lima, Peru where she will implement her certificate capstone project.

The project is a community gardening and ecological restoration initiative designed to improve nutrition, increase mobility, reduce illness, improve mental health and well being, and contribute to economic stability and social infrastructure in a distressed informal "slum' community.

McKenzie, the first recipient of the new $15,000 award for undergraduates, is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture and expects to graduate in May 2014. She plans to use the award to travel to Bristol Bay and the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska to research and develop speculative designs for alternative mining practices and modular intervention to enhance and protect salmon habitat.

Also honored are six National Olmsted Scholar Finalists, who will each receive a $1,000 award.

The graduate finalists are:

- Jose Alvarez, Florida International University
- Tina Chee, University of Southern California
- Graham Prentice, University of Pennsylvania

The undergraduate finalists are:

- Zachary Barker, State University of New York
- Pamela Blackmore, Utah State University
- Eliza Rodrigs, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

An independent jury of leaders in the landscape architecture profession selected the winners and finalists from a group of 39 graduate and 28 undergraduate students who were nominated by their faculty for being exceptional student leaders. These top students earned the designation of 2013 University Olmsted Scholars and join the growing community of 243 past and present Olmsted Scholars.

For more information about LAF scholarship programs, please visit lafoundation.org.

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