Become a Landscape Architect
LAAB: Board Members
Educators
Weimin Li, Ph.D., ASLA
LAAB Secretary
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Pomona, CA
Weimin Li is a Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, College of Environmental Design, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona), where she also serves as the graduate coordinator of the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) program. Professor Li received her Ph.D. degree from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning (LAEP), University of California at Berkeley. As graduate coordinator, she is responsible for admission, advising, curriculum improvement, recruitment, assessment, and other critical program development and coordination aspects.
Professor Li has more than 20 years of academic and professional experience in landscape architecture, environmental sustainability, and geospatial science and technologies. She specializes in systemic landscape planning, advanced geospatial technologies, and their creative application in landscape architecture, urban design, and environmental planning practice in California and beyond. Specifically, Professor Li researches the environmental and social impacts of contemporary landscape design and planning on different dimensions of sustainability and quality of life in urban settings. Her teaching and scholarly work have been widely published in national and international outlets and recognized by national ASLA, EPA, CLARB, and many other state and regional agencies.
Daniel Ortega, ASLA
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV
Daniel (Danny) H. Ortega is a Professor of Landscape Architecture and the Director of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) School of Architecture. Danny holds a first professional Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from UNLV and a terminal Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Professor Ortega was recognized by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture as the 2020 Outstanding Administrator of the Year. His scholarly interests lie in the cultural interpretations of place and the role(s) that those interpretations play in the crafting of contemporary landscapes. Additionally, his research includes issues related to emerging technologies and visual representation as factors that affect landscape architecture pedagogy. His co-edited/co-authored book, Innovations in Landscape Architecture, is an inspiring and thought-provoking text that explores how applied innovation uniquely positions the discipline’s practitioners and educators to address the complex issues that affect the contemporary practice of landscape architecture.
Allan W. Shearer, Ph.D., FASLA, FCELA
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX
Allan W. Shearer is an Associate Professor and the Associate Dean for Research and Technology in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. He previously taught at Rutgers University. His work centers on how people think about change and the potential positive and negative consequences that might come from it. The topics of his publications span examining ambiguity and uncertainty in design practices, relationships between regional development and biodiversity conservation, and the ways climate change may affect international relations. He is a co-author of the books Land Use Scenarios: The Environmental Consequences of Development and Gaia's Revenge: Climate Change and Humanity's Loss and was the co-editor of a special issue of the journal Landscape and Urban Planning on geodesign. Since 2015, he has contributed to the NATO Urbanization Project and other defense-related efforts to advance understanding of the ways cities and their populations might be affected by crises.
He has been a Fellow of the James Marston Fitch Foundation, a research fellow of the Landscape Architecture Foundation's Landscape Performance Case Study Investigation's program. He has received the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture's award for Excellence in Research and Creative Works and listed among the Most Admired Educators by the Design Futures Council.
Practitioners
Dale M. Jaeger, FASLA, PLA
LAAB Chair-Elect
WLA Studio
Gainesville, GA
Dale Jaeger, inspired by southern landscapes of her childhood, focuses her work on planning and design projects in this region. After discovering the field of landscape architecture in her 20s, Dale received her master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Georgia. She began her career as a regional Preservation Planner in northeast Georgia. In 1984, she founded The Jaeger Company (TJC) and for the next 30 years with a group of talented colleagues, completed projects focused on cultural, ecological, and civic landscapes, primarily for public sector clients.
Projects highlighted the uniqueness of the region. In Charleston County, SC, this included rice culture at Caw Caw Interpretive Park and Sea Island cotton cultivation at McLeod Plantation. At Reynolda Estate in NC, long term efforts guided restoration of the original designed landscape of Thomas Warren Sears. Multiple assignments for the National Park Service included work along the Blue Ridge Parkway, Skyline Drive and at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. In 2014 TJC sold and is now WLA Studio, where Dale continues to work. Recent projects have focused on mill village landscapes created by Earl Sumner Draper in the 1920s and civic and campus design and construction projects.
Dale’s involvement with ASLA includes serving as President of the Georgia Chapter of ASLA (GAASLA) in 2006 and recently as chairperson of the Northeast Georgia Section of GAASLA. At the national level Dale has been a member of ROVE (Roster of Visiting Evaluators) since 1989 and participated in accreditation visits to 17 programs. Dale served as a juror for the ASLA National Awards Program in 2018 and a Juror for the Council of Fellows from 2012-2014.
Dale and her husband, Robert, met and married while both were landscape architecture students at the University of Georgia. They live on Lake Lanier in Gainesville, Georgia.
Mark Hough, FASLA
Duke University
Durham, NC
Mark Hough, FASLA has guided the evolution of the Olmsted Brothers-designed campus at Duke University since 2000. As the institution’s first University Landscape Architect, he is directly involved in all aspects of planning, design, historic preservation and natural resource management on the 8,000-acre campus. Outside of Duke, Mark is a prolific writer focused on cultural, campus, and urban landscapes. In addition to writing extensively for Landscape Architecture Magazine, he has contributed to Places Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, Planetizen, and Dumbarton Oaks’ compilation Landscape and the Academy. In an upcoming book titled Design Through Time, he explores the evolutionary nature of designed landscapes and the critical process of stewardship. In 2011, Mark was awarded the Bradford Williams Medal for excellence in writing about landscape.
Mark has been a consistent and influential leader within ASLA. He became a Fellow in 2014, served as the Vice President for Communications, sat twice on the Professional Awards Jury, chaired the Student Awards Jury, and participated in numerous committees, including the Annual Meeting Education Advisory Committee, Honors and Awards Committee, LAM Editorial Advisory Committee, Archives Committee, and Public Practice Committee. He has also held leadership roles in the Society of College and University Planning (SCUP) and cofounded the Association of University Landscape Architects (AULA), membership in which includes landscape architects from dozens of universities across the country.
Juanita Shearer-Swink, FASLA, PLA
Raleigh, NC
Juanita Shearer-Swink, FASLA, PLA, retired in May 2019 from GoTriangle, where she was most recently the Architectural Program Manager for the Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit Project. During her 27 years at GoTriangle, a regional public transit agency in the Triangle Region of North Carolina, she was involved in the community engagement, public policy, intergovernmental initiatives, planning and design of transit and rail projects, and the place-making they facilitate.
As a registered landscape architect, she has practiced primarily in the public sector in the Triangle Region and in Miami, Florida, including 11 years with the City of Miami as a Capital Projects Manager and Landscape Architect. Juanita served for eight years as a gubernatorial appointee to the North Carolina Board of Transportation and two years on the Raleigh Historic Districts Commission.
She participates as a mentor and visiting lecturer in the North Carolina State University College of Design Landscape Architecture Department and, as a member of the Roster of Visiting Evaluators (ROVE), she has been the practitioner member of visiting teams on several LAAB accreditation visits. Juanita was also an instructor at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens in Coral Gables, Florida.
Throughout her 45-year career, Juanita has worked on numerous state chapter and national ASLA committees and initiatives, including the ASLA Diversity Summits for which she served as facilitator from 2012 to 2016. She has been a member of and also chaired the Council of Fellows Jury and recently became the 2020 chair-elect of the Council. In 2014 she received the ASLA Outstanding Service Award and in 2018 the North Carolina Award from NCASLA. Juanita is a graduate of the University of Florida Landscape Architecture Department from which she received the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1983.
Public Members
Chelina Odbert, Hon. ASLA
Kounkuey Design Initiative
Los Angeles, CA
Chelina Odbert believes in the power of community-engaged design to advance racial, environmental, and economic equity in neighborhoods and cities. As Founding Principal and CEO of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), she aims to bring good design to places where it is not often found and connect localized design interventions to large-scale policy change.
Chelina has been recognized widely for her work to build a more just public realm, including by the The Architectural League of New York, the Knight Foundation, and the Aspen Institute. In 2022, KDI received the National Design Award for Landscape Architecture from Cooper Hewitt, and in 2023, Chelina received an Honorary ASLA Membership. Chelina has held teaching appointments at Harvard Graduate School of Design and UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She earned a BA with high honors from Claremont McKenna College and a Master of Urban Planning from Harvard University.
Derrek Niec-Williams
Howard University
Washington, DC
Derrek Niec-Williams’ international upbringing via the United States Diplomatic Corps provided exposure to a diverse range of cultures, languages, religions, and educational settings. The cumulative impact of these experiences imbued an acute sensitivity to the importance of learning environments and their responsiveness to contextual factors.
Mr. Niec-Williams has served as designated owner’s representative and program manager responsible for the planning, design and construction of various real estate development project typologies throughout his career. This breadth of experience spans the educational continuum to include public, public charter, and independent k-12 institutions, higher education, private, and municipal clients. His portfolio of experience also reflects a broad range of projects which have traversed the development spectrum from early planning through implementation and occupancy/operations.
His work with educational administrators has proven him a diligent and methodical process manager able to steer strategic thinking into tangible initiatives, then catalyze implementation plans resulting in physical solutions that maximize the value of investments. A proud Howard University alumnus, Mr. Niec-Williams is honored to serve his alma mater as the Executive Director for Campus Planning, Architecture & Development, where he oversees a +256-acre portfolio valued above $1.5B.
David Yellen
University of Miami School of Law
Miami, FL
David Yellen became the Dean of the University of Miami School of Law on July 1, 2022. This is Yellen’s third deanship. He served as Dean and Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law from 2005-2016. During this time Loyola was recognized as one of the most innovative law schools in the country. He was frequently included on National Jurist magazine’s list of the 25 Most Influential People in Legal Education. Yellen was previously a faculty member at Hofstra Law School, where he held the Max Schmertz Distinguished Professorship and served as Dean from 2001-2004. He has also been the Reuschlein Distinguished Visiting Professor at Villanova University School of Law and twice served as a visiting professor at Cornell Law School.
Yellen previously served as Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, located at the University of Denver, from 2021-2022. IAALS is a national, independent research center which works to improve access to justice and the effectiveness of the civil justice system. From 2016-2019 was President of Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Before beginning his academic career, Dean Yellen clerked for a federal judge, practiced law in Washington, D.C., and served as counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. He graduated from Princeton University and Cornell Law School.
Representatives from
American Society of Landscape Architects –
Bill Estes, ASLA, PLA, LEED AP
MIG Inc. | University of Washington
Seattle, WA
Bill Estes is an award-winning landscape architect and educator based in Seattle, Washington. For over 20 years, he has developed a portfolio of work that spans the globe with projects in the United States, Europe, Central and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, providing him with a nuanced understanding of working in diverse regions, environments, and cultures. As a Senior Landscape Architect with MIG, his work engages the variety of challenges we face in creating a built environment that layers ecological design with human needs. Bill leads a diverse array of design and planning projects including climate and flood resiliency, urban design, parks, streetscapes, and campus and community development. His community-driven design process is informed by the unique and complex stories of place and how those can be translated through design to create meaningful places that endure.
Bill has a deep appreciation for the symbiotic relationship between academia and practice and the ways in which theory and research can advance new directions and innovation in design practice. In addition to his professional practice, he is an Affiliate Faculty member, lecturer, and design critic in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington. His teaching explores pedagogical approaches to technical education through the integration of the artistic and problem-solving capacities inherent to the profession with a goal of developing greater technical proficiency inclusive of theory, critical thinking, and aesthetics. This endeavor is aimed at easing graduate’s transition into the profession and preparing future generations of creative and technically skilled landscape architects to address the challenges of tomorrow.
Bill is an active member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) serving at both the state and national levels. He has participated on ASLA’s Climate Action Advisory Committee; the Honors and Awards Committee; and professional and student design awards juries for the Connecticut, Indiana, and Oregon state chapters. He is currently chair of ASLA’s Education and Practice Professional Practice Network and the society’s Representative to the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board.
Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture –
Roxi Thoren, ASLA
LAAB Chair
Pennsylvania State University
State College, PA
Professor Roxi Thoren is Department Head of Landscape Architecture and Stuckeman Chair of Integrative Design at Pennsylvania State University. She researches the integration of productivity in landscape architectural design, including a series of research and design projects around agriculture, forestry, and co-design with animals. Professor Thoren is the author of Landscapes of Change, listed by the ASLA as a 2014 Top Ten book in landscape architecture, and co-author with Phoebe Lickwar of Farmscape: The Design of Productive Landscapes. She has published work in the Journal of Landscape Architecture, Landscape Review, Places, Scenario Journal, and the Journal of Architectural Education, and she is currently writing a book on forestry as a design practice.
Thoren previously taught at the University of Oregon, where she served as Department Chair in Landscape Architecture, founding Director of the Fuller Center for Productive Landscapes, and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Design, where she was responsible for curricular initiatives and accreditation across twenty-eight degree programs. Thoren is a Fulbright Fellow (Iceland), a Landscape Architecture Foundation research fellow, and a recipient of research and design awards from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards.
Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards –
Christine A. Anderson, ASLA, PLA, CLARB
Mark Thomas
Sacramento, CA
Christine Anderson is a Project Manager with Mark Thomas, a multi-disciplinary, California-based, professional services firm specializing in transportation planning, engineering, and design. She is an integral member of the Landscape Architecture and Urban Design Division, with over 25 years of experience in preparing planning and construction documents for streetscapes, downtown revitalizations, active transportation, trails, bridges, open space, and park and recreation projects. Her specific forte is that of urban design and economic development. She is a graduate of California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.
Christine has spent the better part of her career advocating for the advancement of the licensed profession of landscape architecture. She has most recently served as President, Immediate Past-President, and Chair of the Nominating Committee for the Council of Landscape Architecture Registration Boards (CLARB). Her crowning achievement in CLARB was to serve multiple years as chair of the governance task force, a “short-term” role to restructure and enhance CLARB’s governance, elections, appointments, and nominating process. She has also served as Treasurer, Vice President and Liaison to the Exam Committee, and Region V Director for CLARB. Prior to CLARB service, she served on the Landscape Architects Technical Committee (licensing board of California) in multiple capacities, as Sierra Chapter President (ASLA), and as a committee member to the Landscape Architecture Department Advisory Council for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.