Closing the Gender Equity Gap, Advocacy in the Workplace

Ujijji Davis is a landscape architect who focuses on landscape and urban design, master planning and strategic implementation. Her background in urban planning is driven by authentic community engagement and research as foundational to equitable design. Her research topics include anti-displacement, vernacular landscapes, and the intersection of between culture and place in cities. In 2019, she won the ASLA Bradford Williams Medal for her research on the erasure on Black American urban landscapes and the responsibilities of landscape architecture for reconciliation through design. She was previously an Associate at SmithGroup in the Detroit Urban Design Studio. She’s originally from Brooklyn.

A career-long advocate for the profession, Jeanne knows it has a very compelling narrative to celebrate and share. She has been proactive in numerous organizations and instrumental in creating new platforms, whenever needed, to give voice to landscape architecture.

Jeanne currently co-chairs the ASLA Gender Equity Task Force, and serves on the Websites Task Force (leading the redevelopment of the ASLA.org and LAM.org) and FrameWorks Task Force (working in conjunction with the President’s Council on the branding and communications of landscape architecture to the public). As a member of the ASLA Executive Committee, Jeanne recently completed her 3-year term as ASLA Vice President of Communications. Prior to that, she served two consecutive 3-year terms on the ASLA Board of Trustees for the Boston Chapter which represents Massachusetts and Maine. She has supported ASLA through her national committee work including Public Awareness, PR and Communications, Leadership Development, and LAM Editorial Advisory Committees.

Participation in the peer organization, AIA, offers her multiple venues through which to strategically promote the mission of landscape architecture and advocate for equity to the design and construction industry at large. Most recently, Jeanne served on the Foundation’s Institutional Advancement Committee, as well as the Equity Diversity Inclusion + Harassment Task Force. She was co-chair of the Women in Design Committee and co-chair of the Women Principals Group for over ten years, where she was a founding member of the AIA Women’s Leadership Summit, now an annual AIA national event.

Jeanne studied urban and regional planning and landscape architecture, and is a graduate of the University of Guelph. For over two decades she has been in private practice in Boston, and has received local, national, and international recognition for her leadership and work.

David is a Human Resources Program Manager at PuzzleHR living in the Chicagoland area. He holds a master’s degree in Critical Race and Ethnicity studies from the University of California, San Diego and is committed to using this knowledge to make workplaces more inclusive spaces. On his downtime, David enjoys rock-climbing and listening to podcasts.  

Sami Sikanas is a landscape architectural designer based in New York City. She currently works at MARVEL, where she designs and implements urban projects of all scales. Born and raised in rural western Michigan, Sami was imbued with an appreciation for nature. This brought her to study at the University of Michigan, where she gained her undergraduate degree in Environmental and Urban Studies. She continued her studies at UM’s School of Natural Resources for her master’s in landscape architecture. Sami has spoken at the national ASLA conference in 2019, as well as panels and events at AIA-NY, ASLA-NY, and Build Out Alliance among others.