Cultivating Climate Justice: New Frameworks for Rural Resilience - 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)

Forbes Lipschitz is Associate Professor and the Graduate Chair of Landscape Architecture at the Knowlton School. Her current research investigates the potential of design to reframe and reshape conventional working landscapes. Through public installations and participatory workshops, she explores ways for design to help communities better understand and engage with agricultural systems. Her research has been published nationally and internationally and her creative work has been featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine, Metropolis Magazine, and Smithsonian Magazine. She has been awarded funding from the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research, the Graham Foundation for Fine Arts and the Van Alen Institute.

Alison Hirsch, PhD, FAAR, is a landscape designer and historian. She is Associate Professor and former Director of Landscape Architecture & Urbanism at USC, where she leads the Landscape Justice Initiative, an applied research platform that addresses questions of environmental, spatial and climate justice at local and systemic scales. As a designer/planner, Alison consults on rural community planning in CA's Central Valley, where her practice focuses on climate resilient rural self-sufficiency and reparative design in response to the racialized inequality inscribed in this industrial landscape. Alison was a Rome Prize winner, LAF Fellow in Leadership+Innovation, and author of numerous books/articles/chapters.

Thomas Woltz is the Principal and Owner of Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects (NBW). He received his Master of Architecture and Landscape Architecture from UVA and holds an honorary doctorate from SUNY ESF. He was recognized with the Land for People Award by the Trust for Public Land in 2019 and serves on the Board of Directors of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. Over the past two decades of practice, NBW has developed a unique approach to design using ecological and cultural research as the foundation for creating meaningful landscapes that inspire connection to place.