Joan Nassauer

Joan Nassauer is a Professor in the School of Natural Resources & Environment at the University of Michigan. She investigates public acceptance and cultural sustainability of ecological planning and design of human-dominated landscapes. She teaches graduate courses on metropolitan design dynamics, the use of ecological and social sciences in ecological design, and interdisciplinary approaches to brownfield redevelopment. Her lab uses interdisciplinary design approaches to develop alternative scenarios for landscapes and social science approaches to contribute to integrative assessments of alternative futures. More than 70 refereed papers and book chapters, as well as her books: Placing Nature and From the Corn Belt to the Gulf , describe her research on human response to and effects on landscape change across scales – from urban front yards and farm fields to metropolitan watersheds and agricultural regions. Currently she is collaborating with colleagues in social and natural sciences to investigate post-industrial cities and exurban sprawl. Founding secretary of the National Academy of Environmental Design, she has been named Distinguished Landscape Ecologist in the US, Distinguished Landscape Ecology Practitioner in the US and Distinguished Landscape Ecology Scholar by the International Association of Landscape Ecology. She has held distinguished visiting appointments at the Japan National Forest Research Institute, the University of Melbourne, and the University of California Berkeley. She serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals and book series. A licensed landscape architect and Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, Nassauer earned the BLA at the University of Minnesota (1975) and the MLA at the Iowa State University (1978).