Mariana Alegre Escorza
Mariana Alegre Escorza is Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the founder and executive director of Sistema Urbano , a Latin American urban innovation ecosystem that integrates data, participation, and collaborative action to transform cities and territories. Her work seeks to improve quality of life by advancing citizen-led urbanism to address urban inequity, spatial injustice, and climate challenges. She bridges research, policy, and practice through participatory processes, civic engagement, and cross-sector collaboration, with a focus on urban mobility, public transit and active modes, climate resilience, land use, and the co-creation of public space. Alegre believes in community care and community power as essential drivers for advancing public goods.
Alegre has founded and led multiple award-winning platforms. Lima Cómo Vamos , an independent urban observatory, has produced more than 30 surveys and reports influencing public policy and community action. Ocupa Tu Calle has transformed over 50 public spaces, shaped national and local policy, trained mayors and public officials, and partnered with multilateral organizations to scale participatory approaches across Latin America. She also established Ciudades Cómo Vamos – Perú, a national civic observatory network; Nodal, a regional platform connecting urban changemakers across Latin America; and Clima Urbano, an initiative advancing socio-ecological responses to environmental and health crises. She has served on national and municipal advisory committees, including Peru’s Bicentenary Special Project; designed participatory frameworks for local governments; and worked with communities throughout Peru and Latin America to co-produce public goods and strengthen resilience.
Her academic work includes teaching at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in the Master’s program in Architecture, Sustainable Urbanism, and Territorial Development, as well as in the Law School and the School of Management. She is a tenured professor at the Faculty of Management Sciences. Alegre has designed and delivered courses on urbanism, citizenship, the right to the city, urban and social management, and environmental and social innovation, in addition to directing the Law Clinic on Sustainable Cities. She has advised graduate theses and authored publications on public space, citizen-led urbanism, mobility justice, inequality, and risk management. In addition to her academic and civic leadership, Alegre is a skilled communicator and public voice, with experience as a columnist and radio presenter on urban issues.
Alegre’s leadership has been recognized with the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard GSD (2024–25), inclusion in Forbes Peru’s “Most Powerful Women” list (2022), and designation as a Remarkable Woman in Transport by Women Mobilize Women & TUMI (2019). She has participated in global exchange and leadership programs with the U.S. Department of State, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Affairs Office of Bordeaux Métropole and international universities such as MIT (MetroLab IAP), Aalto University and the Technical University of Dresden (CIPSEM).
She holds a MSc in City Design and Social Science from the London School of Economics as a Chevening Scholar, a Master’s in Human Rights, and a Law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
Holly Samuelson
Holly W. Samuelson, DDes, Registered Architect
Dr. Samuelson is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, teaching architectural technology courses. Her teaching and research focus on building design issues that impact human and environmental health. Her current projects harness advanced building simulation to investigate greenhouse gas emissions, heat vulnerability, and indoor environmental quality while considering the future of buildings in a changing electricity grid.
Samuelson has coauthored more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific papers, including a Best Paper awarded by the journal Energy and Buildings. She has coached multiple winning student teams in international design competitions. Her work has been commended twice at scholarly conferences, and she regularly gives public lectures internationally. A recognized expert in architectural technology, she has been interviewed by national and international media outlets, including the Washington Post, the BBC, the Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal.
Before joining Harvard, Samuelson practiced full-time as an architect (2000-2007) and sustainable design consultant (2007-2008). She earned a Doctor of Design and Master of Design with distinction from Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded the Gerald M. McCue medal. She earned a Bachelor of Architecture with honors from Carnegie Mellon and was awarded the American Institute of Architects Henry Adams Gold Medal.
MEDIA
2024 Women’s Health quote. “Toxic Mold… Climate Change Might Be Making It Worse ,” V. Pelly
2024 STAT quote. “Older adults are vulnerable in a warming climate. Better buildings could help protect them ,” A. DiCorato
2023 Washington Post cited expert. “The Inequality of Heat ,” A. Gowen, N. Kommenda, S. Ducroquet, G. Anant
2023 Boston Globe quote. “Cambridge Enacts Ambitious Building Emissions Reduction Standards ,” M. Ellis
2023 Boston Harvard Gazette interview. “Struggling to Design Green Buildings Amid Shifting Legal, Tech Landscape ,” C. Pazzanese
2022 Urban Land: Journal of the Urban Land Institute featured academic project. “ResilentHub: A Study in Getting Office Buildings to Net Zero ,” A. Gibbes, R. Peiser
2020 The Wall Street Journal video interview. “The Office Redesign Has Only Just Begun ,” Falk, A.
2020 The Wall Street Journal video, cited contributor. “Ventilation is Key to Battling COVID. Here’s Why ” D. Hernandez
2020 Vogue quote. “What Will Your Office Look Like After Lockdown?” Taylor, E.
2019 BBC quote. “Why indoor air quality matters to our bodies and our brains ,” V. Greenwood https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190724-why-indoor-air-quality-matters-to-our-bodies-and-our-brains
2018 Harvard Gazette quote. “Your building might be making you sick ,” C. Walsh
2007 Architecture Boston. Featured design project: Carmax Home Office. January/February 2007.
2002 Urban Land: Journal of the Urban Land Institute. Featured design project: Carmax Home Office. “Building Green in the Woods,” W.P. Macht
2002 Boston Globe. Featured design project: Art Interactive gallery. “At this gallery viewers become part of the art ,” C. McQuaid
Niall Kirkwood
“My subject is technology in landscape architecture and its relationship to design.
A professional landscape architect makes a landscape through the natural and constructed landscape medium across the territorial scale to that of individual sites. Landscape architects act deliberately and imaginatively through tactile and material physical design, therefore technology (emerging and traditional) is the most important subject in the discipline of landscape architecture and central to education and professional practices.
The topics of my research, teaching, publishing and design practice include the global post-industrial landscape and innovations in regenerating brownfields, superfund sites, landfills, extraction and mining lands and remediation techniques for polluted air, water, soils and sediments. More recently this has focused on aspects of land retreat, urbanization, flooding, phytoremediation techniques, waste legacies and themes of community and environmental justice.”
I am engaged with landscapes and sites, domestically and internationally that most designers avoid because these places are too damaged, risky, polluted and ultimately too difficult. This is where the work of landscape architecture is most relevant in the 21st century and where true imagination and beauty can lie”.
Niall Kirkwood, FASLA, AAAS, is the Charles Eliot Research Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) where he has taught and carried out research, publishing and consulting since joining the faculty in 1991. He retired as a full-time faculty member in July 1, 2025, and moved to become a research professor at the GSD. He was educated and licensed as a professional landscape architect and architect in the United Kingdom and as a professional landscape architect in the United States. From 2003-2009, he was the thirteenth Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture, the oldest such program in North America, founded in 1901 by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and Arthur Shurcliff. From 1999-2003 and 2005-2007, he was Director of the Master’s in Landscape Architecture Degree Programs (MLA), and from 1999-2003, he was the coordinator of the “Design and Environment” track of the Master in Design Studies Program (MDes). He served as the GSD Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 2019 to 2024 and was an elevated as member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) in 2024.
Kirkwood has served as Chairman of the GSD Faculty Review Board and Academic Misconduct Panel and has served as a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment, the Harvard University Center for the Environment and a member of the faculty steering committee of The Harvard Global Health Institute. He served as the GSD representative on Harvard University’s Title IX Policy Review Advisory Committee and the Vice Provost for Advanced Learning’s (VPAL) Planning Council.
Externally, he has served as a member of the Advisory Board and External Examiner, Landscape Architecture Program, School of Architecture, Hong Kong University, External Examiner, Landscape Architecture Program, University of Toronto, a member of the On-Site External Examiners Review Committee to the School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China, a member of External Examiners, Landscape Architecture Program, School of Architecture, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, a member of Visiting Curriculum Committee to University of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico and is currently a Beijing Foreign High-Level Talent Scholar at Tsinghua University (2024- 2025)
Kirkwood holds courtesy academic appointments including Distinguished Visiting Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, Visiting Professor , International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA), Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, Founding Professorship and Dean of Landscape Architecture, School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing University (BUCEA), Beijing, China, and is a Member of Academic Advisory Board of Beijing Advanced Innovation Center of Urban Design for Future Cities, Beijing, China. During Spring 2010 he was on sabbatical at Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture. During Fall 2017, he was on sabbatical at Smith College, Northampton, MA. in the Landscape Studies Program as the William Allen Neilson Visiting Professor and during Fall 2024, he was on sabbatical at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, International Program in Design and Architecture, (INDA) as a Visiting Professor.
Kirkwood is currently a Member of International Editorial Board of Landscape Architecture Journal (2025- 2029) Editor of Nakhara: Journal of Environmental Design and Planning Bangkok, (2025-present), Deputy Editor in Chief of Landscape Architecture Journal (2020-2024), He was formerly Advisory Editor, (2015-2020, Beijing, China) was formerly Editor-in Chief of Nakhara: Journal of Environmental Design and Planning (2015-2018, Bangkok, Thailand), Managing Editor, Worldscape Magazine, Chief Editor, RISE Journal (2015- present, Seoul, Korea). His essays and articles on design research, practice, and teaching have been published in Landscape Architecture Magazine (USA), Landscape (UK), Journal of Chinese Landscape Architecture, Landscape Architecture Korea, Business World India, City Planning Review: Journal of City Planning Institute of Japan, Landscape Architecture Journal (China), Eco City and Green Building Journal, Landscape Record, China, Worldscape (China),Environment and Landscape Architecture of Korea, Urban Space Design (China), and Harvard Design Magazine.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (FASLA) in 2009 and is an honorary Fellow of the Kew Guild, The Royal Gardens at Kew, England also in 2009. He was recognized for his global leadership in post-industrial regeneration and brownfields by an honorary Doctor of Science (DSc.) from the University of Ulster, Belfast, Northern Ireland in 2009.
He was elected a Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Architectural Registration Council of the United Kingdom (ARCUK) in 1978, an Associate Member of the Institute of Landscape Architects, United Kingdom (ILA) in 1988, a Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1989 and was made a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (FASLA) in 2009.
The scope of Kirkwood’s teaching, research, publishing and landscape consulting practice all emphasize a broader understanding of current and emerging technologies from landscape and environmental engineering, and how this understanding can best result in more creative and progressive design work in the fields of landscape architecture and planning and urban planning and design.
Kirkwood teaches core and option landscape design studios and offers lecture courses, workshops and seminars about design and aspects of technology in Landscape Architecture, Planning and Design.
Option design studios include: GSD 1413 Bangkok Remade: Design to Enhance Social Dignity, Climate Resilience, and Inspire the Nation’s Imagination in the Contemporary Thai Landscape, (2023) co-taught with Kotchakorn Voraakhom, GSD 1408 Ottawa County Remade: Toxic Transformations, Environmental Justice and Design Imagination, Ottawa County, North-East Oklahoma, USA (2022), GSD 1409 Tar Creek Remade: Environmental Legacies and Re-Imagining the Future of the Tar Creek Superfund Site, Tri-State Mining District, Ottawa County, Oklahoma, USA (2021), GSD 1408 Thailand Remade: The Lower Chao Phraya Flood Plain, Pathum Thani and the Technological Imagination, (2020) co-taught with Kotchakorn Voraakhom, GSD 1407 Fieldwork: Brexit, Borders and Imagining a New City-Region for the Irish Northwest (2019), co-taught with Gareth Doherty, GSD 1407 Korea Remade: Alternate Nature, DMZ and Hinterlands (2018) co-taught with Jungyoon Kim and Yoonjin Park, GSD 1409 Ulsan Remade: Manufacturing the Modern Industrial City- The Case of Ulsan, Republic of Korea, (2017), co-taught with Francesca Benedetto, GSD 1406 Seoul Remade: Design of the ‘Kool’ and the Everyday- Regeneration of the EBS District, Gangnam, Seoul, Republic of Korea (2016), GSD 1401 Mumbai Metropolitan: Adapting the Township Lands, Mumbai, India (2008) co-taught with Nazneen Cooper, GSD 1402 Mumbai Margins: Rethinking the Island City, Mumbai, India (2007) co-taught with Nazneen Cooper, GSD1402 Maximum Mumbai, Minimum Mumbai: Repositioning the Cotton Textile Mill Lands, Girangaon, Central Mumbai, India (2006), co-taught with Nazneen Cooper, GSD 1404 Altered Faces: Reworking the Teheran Corridor, Seoul, Korea (2004), co-taught with Alistair McIntosh, and GSD 1403 Motor City Landscapes: Detroit Riverfront (1999) co-taught with Mary Margaret Jones.
Landscape Core studio courses have included: GSD 1211 Landscape Architecture III and GSD 1211 Planning and Design of Landscapes
Lecture courses have included:GSD 6242 Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies IV, GSD 6323 Brownfield Practicum: Regeneration and Reuse of Brownfield Lands, GSD 6219 Plants and Technology II, GSD 6206 Landscape Technology, GSD 6442 Rebuilding Devastated Environments: Sustainable Landscape Development in the 21st Century, GSD 6304 Site-works, GSD 6303 Site Planning and GSD 2103 Drawing the Landscape.
Seminar courses have included: GSD 6454 Poetics of Landscape Construction, GSD 9108PHYTO Remediation and Rebuilding Technologies in the Landscape, GSD 9206 Mumbai Matters: Assembling Urban India, GSD 9206 Reimagining India: A New Urban Enterprise? GSD 3501 MLA IAP/MLA II Landscape Architecture Professional Seminar, GSD 6323 Brownfields: Sustainable Redevelopment of Brownfield Sites in Dorchester and East Boston, MA, GSD 6400 Landfill Enduse: Freshkills Landfill Regeneration, Staten Island, NY, GSD 6440 Land Reclamation and Remediation Technologies, GSD 6323 Advanced Seminar on Landscape Technology: Brownfields, GSD 6323 Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape.
Professor Kirkwood studies technology and its relationship to landscape architecture through a series of research topics including the reuse of former industrial and polluted land, site remediation technologies, urban landscape planning and design, landscape reclamation, landscape detail design, traditional and emerging construction technologies and on-going weathering and durability of built landscapes related to climate change. He is a leading academic internationally in the field of site remediation, regeneration and recovery across a range of geographies, countries and scales of landscape. Areas of specific focus include mining extraction sites, urban and rural brownfields, waste landfills, the regeneration of superfund sites (USA), decommissioned military bases, closed manufacturing facilities and the invention and production of remade land using applied remediation technologies.
He is the co-founder with Professor Xiaodi Zheng of the Center for Brownfield Research at Tsinghua University, Beijing, P.R. China. He was also the founder and director of the Center for Environment and Technology (CTE), a research, advisory and executive education initiative located at the GSD. The CTE (1997-2017) focused on site analysis, remediation, sustainable reclamation issues, emerging landscape materials and educational design outreach in North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Research projects included: Expo 2106 ‘City and Nature’ Regeneration Site Design, Tangshan, China; Urban Ireland: The City of Belfast as a Laboratory of Change; Dongchun New Town Housing Landscape, Korea; Hanam Misa Housing Landscape, Seoul, Korea; Post-mining reclamation strategies for the Pingshuo Mining Company, Shanxi, China; Vertical and Horizontal Moss Panel Surface Technologies with Il Song Landscape Research, Seoul, Korea; Strategies for development of the DMZ National Forest- ‘Forest of Peace’ for Ministry of Forestry, Korea; Zinc Smelting Plants Reuse in Monterrey and Chihuahua, Mexico with Grupo Diseno Urbano, Mexico City; Hiriya Landfill Reuse and Ayalon Park, Tel Aviv for District Planning Office, Tel Aviv and Beracha Foundation; Research on the low carbon city for the Mayor’s Office, Metropolitan Region of Seoul, Korea, an analysis and report on U-Eco Cities, for the Korea Institute of Construction & Transportation Technology Evaluation and Planning (KICTEP) and collaboration with MK Singh, (Delhi) and Samsung C&T Corporation, Engineering and Construction Group on sustainable design and development in Mumbai.
Prior to joining the Harvard faculty Kirkwood worked in private design offices in Scotland, UK, London, England, UK and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA carrying out urban land reclamation, landscape architectural design, urban architecture, and development projects in Europe, Middle East, and the U.S.A. These included Ardeer Quarry Restoration, and Saltcoats Landfill Reclamation, Ayrshire, Scotland, Canary Wharf, Phases 1- 3, London Docklands UK, Hotel del Artes, Vila Olimpica, Barcelona, Spain, Parc de le Draga, Banyoles, Spain, Kings Cross Redevelopment, London, UK. Chiswick Park, London, UK, Royal Albert Docks, London Docklands, Bishopsgate and Ludgate Developments, City of London, UK, Wexner Center, OSU Campus, Columbus, Ohio, the British Embassy and Chancellery, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Colfes School Arts Center, Barnes, London, UK.
He was a project architect with the Office of Derek Lovejoy & Partners, Landscape Architects and Planners (now DLP), Edinburgh, Scotland and Trevor Dannatt & Partners, London, UK. He also worked as a senior associate of the landscape architecture office, Hanna/Olin Ltd, Philadelphia (now The Olin Studio, Inc.) consulting with the design offices of Eisenman and Robertson, New York, Foster Associates, London, UK, Richard Rogers Partnership, London, UK, Ove Arup & Partners, London, UK. Office of Frank O. Gehry, Los Angeles, Aldo Rossi, Milan. Italy, David Chipperfield, London, UK, Eric Parry, London, SOM, Chicago and London UK.
In addition Kirkwood has consulted for Weston & Sampson, Boston, MA (2016), Group Han, Seoul, Republic of Korea, (2014- present), Eastwood Design Company, Beijing, P.R. China (2006-2010), the Clean Land Fund, Rhode Island (2005-2012), District Planning Office, Tel Aviv and Beracha Foundation on Hiriya Landfill, (2001), Fresh Kills Regeneration Professional Advisory Forum, (2001), City of New York Department of City Planning on Freshkills Landfill (1999-2001), and US EPA Region 1, New England (2000).
Ann Forsyth
On leave for Fall 2025 & Spring 2026
Ann Forsyth is the Ruth and Frank Stanton Professor of Urban Planning.
Trained in planning and architecture, Forsyth works mainly on the social aspects of physical planning and urban development. The big issue behind her research and practice is how to make more sustainable and healthy cities. Forsyth’s current research focuses on developing healthier places in a suburbanizing world, with overlapping emphases on aging and planned communities.
She has contributed to three main areas of research and practice. First is documenting and assessing innovative and high-density planning and design in suburban/metropolitan areas. This includes research examining new towns as a whole and specific challenging issues: achieving walkability, planning higher density and affordable housing, supporting social diversity, and balancing social and ecological values. Second is work evaluating and proposing how the physical environment can improve health. She has explored physical activity and food environments, processes of densification, and the needs of different age groups, as well as translating research on health and environments into tools for practice. Forsyth has been active in developing and evaluating new instruments and measures using GIS, fieldwork, surveys, impact assessments, public participation processes, and evidence-based practice guidelines. Finally, she has been active examining how to connect research and practice. This includes understanding the different forms of research and investigation, and how research can inform the process and substance of planning.
Her education includes a B.Sc. in architecture from the University of Sydney, M.A. in urban planning from UCLA, and Ph.D. in city and regional planning from Cornell.
At Harvard, Forsyth is affiliated with the Joint Center for Housing Studies , Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies , Harvard University Center for the Environment , Weatherhead Center for International Affairs , the Harvard-China Project and the Harvard Global Health Institute .
She is a co-leader of the Healthy Places Design Lab and the New Towns Initiative .
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