2026 Honors & Medals

Photo Credit: Dennis Otsuji

Dennis Otsuji, FASLA

ONA, Inc. Landscape Architects

The principal and owner of ONA Landscape Architects for 28 years. Over a 52-year career in landscape architecture, urban design, and planning, he built a reputation for leading exceptional, award-winning projects, with a particular focus on master-planned communities, public parks, and resort destinations. He retired from professional practice in 2022. Dennis’s service to the community is reflected in numerous pro bono projects, including the Amache National Historic Site, Manzanar National Historic Site, and the National Japanese American Memorial in Washington, D.C. These efforts helped preserve and interpret the history of Japanese American incarceration during World War II. His work with the Japanese Friendship Garden & Museum in San Diego has also helped educate the public about Japanese culture, tradition, and heritage. In public service, Dennis served for 16 years on the City of San Diego Planning Commission and for 22 years on the City of San Diego Park and Recreation Board and Design Review Board, where he provided guidance on planning and design. He was also instrumental in preserving landscape architecture licensure in California when it faced a proposed sunset by the Governor’s administration. An active member of ASLA since 1979, Dennis has held many important leadership roles at both the local and national levels, including service as the Society’s 46th National President in 1994.

Photo: Dale Horchner, Design Workshop

Kurt Culbertson, FASLA

Studio: Kurt Culbertson

Kurt Culbertson is a landscape architect, planner, educator, and former Chair and CEO of Design Workshop, the international landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm he led for thirty-three years. A graduate of Louisiana State University, he holds a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from LSU, an MBA from Southern Methodist University, and a PhD from Edinburgh College of Art. He is a Fulbright Scholar and a Fellow of ASLA, AICP, and CELA. Over a fifty-year career, Culbertson has completed projects in forty-six states and twenty-three countries. In 2016, he received the ASLA Medal, the Society's highest honor. On July 1, Culbertson will become Director of the Robert S. Reich School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University.

Photo Credit: [Credit here]

Frederic E. Stresau, FASLA

Fort Lauderdale

Frederic E. Stresau, FASLA, has spent a lifetime shaping both the physical and civic landscape of Fort Lauderdale. Born in Miami just 39 days before Pearl Harbor and raised in Fort Lauderdale from 1946 onward, he grew up in a family devoted to service, design, and stewardship. His grandfather volunteered for the city’s Beach Advisory Board in 1934 and patrolled the port during World War II, while his parents—both landscape architects—built a respected practice and helped elevate the profession throughout Florida. Their example instilled in him an enduring belief that professional talent carries a responsibility to community.

After graduating from the North Carolina State School of Design in 1966, Fred returned to his family’s firm, where his understanding of landscape architecture deepened through practice and purpose. In 1973, he began a remarkable chapter of public service when he was appointed to the city’s Planning and Zoning Board. Guided by the principle of always asking what is best for the city, he went on to serve for more than five decades on boards and committees that helped guide Fort Lauderdale’s growth, casting roughly 3,600 votes in service of its future.

Fred credits his family legacy and the profession’s call to protect and enrich the environment with shaping his life’s direction. He has watched Fort Lauderdale evolve from a small town of 20,000 into a vibrant city of more than 200,000, and he has devoted his career and volunteer service to helping make it, in his words, the “best it can be.” His life reflects a rare blend of professional excellence, civic leadership, and heartfelt commitment to place.

Photo: ASLA 2019

Kenneth R. Brooks, FASLA, FCELA, PLA

Arizona State University

Kenneth R. Brooks, FASLA, FCELA, RLA, is Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture & Urban Design at Arizona State University. He also held faculty positions at Kansas State and Washington State. In his 50-year career, he has been engaged in teaching, research, service, administrative leadership and philanthropy. His courses in Research Methods and Research Proposal Development have helped hundreds of graduate students develop thesis and capstone projects that bring innovation and new understanding to environmental design. Ken has been recognized as an Exemplary Educator by Kansas State and as a Distinguished Alum by both Colorado State and Utah State. In 2026, LAF and CELA honored him with the Forster Ndubisi Distinguished Service Award.

Photo: Kurt Zimmerman

Pamela Zimmerman, PLA, FASLA

Milwaukee Recreation

Pamela Zimmerman, FASLA, is a landscape architect, public-sector leader, and advocate for equitable access to parks, recreation, and community spaces. Throughout her career, she has championed the belief that high-quality public spaces are essential community infrastructure that strengthens neighborhoods, expands opportunities, and improves quality of life. She is particularly proud of her leadership of Dream Build Play, Milwaukee Recreation's equity-focused planning initiative. Beyond her professional work, Pamela has advanced the landscape architecture profession through leadership and service within ASLA at both the state and national levels, including serving as ASLA National Vice President of Communications.

Photo: Forsyth Audubon

Dr. Chris Marsh

Spring Island Trust

Chris Marsh's interest in natural landscapes arose from a passion for birds and bird-watching that started at an early age. His interest in the close relationship between birds and habitats led to earning a Ph.D. in community ecology at Oregon State University in 1984. For the next 50 years, everywhere he traveled he observed how natural and human disturbances created landscape designs in nature. After serving as a consultant at Spring Island, South Carolina for Chaffin and Light Associates for 5 years, he became the Executive Director of the Spring Island Trust in 1998. For the next 24 years he oversaw the management of the natural areas and worked to help ensure the island's leadership adhered to the original vision for Spring Island.

Phyto Studio

Thomas Rainer, Melissa Rainer, and Claudia West, Principals

Phyto Studio is a landscape architecture and horticultural consulting firm recognized for creating plant-driven landscapes that unite ecological performance with exceptional design. Named the 2026 ASLA Firm of the Year, the studio works across public gardens, campuses, estates, parks, waterfronts, civic landscapes, green infrastructure, cultural institutions, and residential projects where planting must do more than beautify a site. Phyto advances a contemporary model of designed plant communities, treating plants as dynamic systems that shape space, support biodiversity, respond to environmental pressures, and create memorable seasonal experiences. The firm bridges design and stewardship, combining spatial clarity, horticultural expertise, ecological science, and long-term land management to ensure landscapes can be implemented, maintained, and allowed to mature over time. Founded by Thomas Rainer, Melissa Rainer, and Claudia West, Phyto grew from a shared conviction that planting design should move beyond ornament toward a more rigorous, ecological, and experience-driven practice. Together, the founders bring complementary strengths in design vision, ecological planting strategy, technical delivery, and implementation. Through built work, teaching, writing, and advocacy, Phyto has helped position planting design as a central discipline within landscape architecture—demonstrating that beauty, resilience, biodiversity, and long-term function can be achieved through plants as living infrastructure.

Photo: Penn State University

Brian Orland, FASLA

Penn State University

Brian Orland, FASLA, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Penn State University, and Professor of Landscape Architecture Emeritus, the University of Illinois. After practicing Architecture for several years, mostly in the UK, he joined the MLA program at the University of Arizona in 1981. His advisors introduced him to the science of how landscape attributes affect human behavior, taking his career in a new direction. At the University of Illinois he developed tools ranging from interactive data-visualization for forest planning and management to web-based GIS enabling citizen engagement in design for the East St. Louis Action Research Project. Through co-founding the International Geodesign Collaboration, he has helped develop and teach Geodesign as a science-informed design framework.

Parks for All

Scott Howard

Parks For All began in 2014, when a small group of citizens came together to oppose a proposed millage for a single park that would have diverted scarce public funding from the broader New Orleans park system. We believed investment should serve the whole city, not just one neighborhood. We won: 71% of voters rejected the measure. Afterward, we shifted from opposition to advocacy. Parks For All became New Orleans' citywide voice for public parks, equitable green space, and thoughtful landscape stewardship. In 2018, we supported a new citywide parks millage on the condition that the city create a comprehensive parks and recreation master plan. The millage passed, and in 2024 New Orleans released The Big Green Easy.

Photo: LayerCake

Andrew Sargeant, ASLA

LayerCake

Andrew Sargeant is a landscape designer that leads his practice, LayerCake, with a commitment to transformative design, emphasizing community well-being and social sustainability. While common approaches prioritize ecological and economic systems, his process centers on people, focusing on cultural richness and unique identities. The practice is grounded by the capability of the community to create, preserve, and amplify public spaces. Over the past two and a half years, LayerCake has created and revived a series of seminal places in Cleveland and around Northeast Ohio. Andrew was born in Jamaica and raised from the age of 6 in Englewood, New Jersey. He received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from Temple University in 2016.

Photo: S. Kowalski

John (Jack) B. Neil

Jack Neil is president of Jack Neil & Associates, LLC based in historic Annapolis Maryland. He represents three decades of professional political experience, with an established track record of successful efforts on behalf of multiple clients. As a veteran lobbyist and political strategist, he has a thorough knowledge of government finance policy, issues affecting businesses and trades, economic development projects, with practice sectors in environment, renewable energy, health care delivery finance systems, and government procurement. To date, Jack has represented some 100 different interests and has worked closely with diverse interest groups in building legislative coalitions and networks in Maryland, the mid-Atlantic region, and at the federal level. The firm's pro bono practice has included dozens of environmental and renewable energy interests including financing mechanisms for environmental technologies; nationally recognized land use and water quality initiatives; to name a few. In addition to lobbying, the firm provides Strategic Advisory Services positioning businesses, non-profits, and institutional interests for mission success and growth.

Brice Oakley

Brice Case Oakley is an attorney, public servant, and civic leader whose career has spanned nearly six decades in law, government, health care, and public affairs. Born in Washington, Iowa, and raised in Moline, Illinois, he earned a B.A. in Public Administration and a law degree from the State University of Iowa, where he was active in student leadership and public life. He served in the Iowa Attorney General’s office, practiced law in Clinton, Iowa, worked as counsel to Governor Robert D. Ray, held senior leadership roles with Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations, and later co-founded a respected government relations partnership serving municipalities, professional associations, health care organizations, and major companies.

Mr. Oakley has also devoted substantial energy to civic life, serving in leadership roles with nonprofit, educational, arts, and community organizations, including the Iowa House of Representatives, the Iowa Arts Council, and the Iowa Capitol Planning Commission. Known for his curiosity, generosity, and dedication to community, he remains engaged through church, reading, music, travel, and enduring friendships. His life and work reflect both professional distinction and a lasting devotion to the communities he has served, including two terms in the Iowa House of Representatives, plus being elected to serve on the Clinton Community School Board.

Photo: Johan Bueno, Dix.Hite + Partners

Gail O'Connor

Dix.Hite + Partners, Inc.

Gail O'Connor is the Chief Financial Officer of Dix.Hite + Partners and has been part of the firm since its founding in 1994. With more than 30 years of experience in business and financial management, she has helped shape the operational and strategic foundation that supports the firm's design excellence and long-term resilience. For more than two decades, Gail has led the firm's strategic planning efforts, including financial modeling, organizational development, market analysis, and long-range planning. Her work focuses on building strong systems and sustainable practices that allow landscape architects and planners to create meaningful, lasting impact within the communities they serve.

Photo: BSLA

Gretchen Rabinkin, Affiliate ASLA, AIA

A licensed architect, educator, and nonprofit leader, Gretchen Rabinkin, AIA, Affiliate ASLA galvanizes collaboration among designers, students, and firms toward our shared, urgent mission of creating a climate- and culturally resilient built environment. Since 2017, Gretchen has served as executive director of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) – the Massachusetts and Maine chapter of ASLA. Gretchen works with the board and area firm leaders to guide strategic direction and manages all chapter operations, including growing and supporting our community of practice, initiating and organizing continuing education, and developing programming to deepen understanding and catalyze action such as the “Inside/Out” site tour series and Fieldday; New England’s Conference on Landscape Architecture. Prior to BSLA, Gretchen was Director of Civic Initiatives at Boston’s AIA chapter, where she led the Community Design Resource Center, the BSA Urban Design Workshops, and helped create the Boston Living with Water International Design Competition. For 30 years Gretchen has taught introductory design to professional, pre-professional, and youth audiences. Currently, she co-directs “The Complete City” summer program at the University of Southern Maine for BSLA with the Portland Society for Architecture. She is the managing editor of BSLA’s annual Fieldbook and a former deputy editor of ArchitectureBoston. Gretchen holds degrees from Smith College and Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Lee Parks, Intl ASLA

Lee Parks has served as a vital bridge between ASLA and the global landscape architecture community. As Chair of the International Practice Professional Practice Network (PPN) from 2019 to 2025, Lee demonstrated extraordinary commitment, consistently leading meetings from Shanghai despite significant time differences and the challenges of extended lockdowns. 

A prolific voice for the profession, Lee is one of the most frequent contributors to The Field, with several of his high-quality, visually compelling posts ranking as the publication's most-viewed content. His writing effectively showcased international design innovation and connected practitioners in China and beyond with ASLA’s robust professional resources.

 Throughout his tenure, Lee excelled at engaging a diverse, global membership, fostering dialogue across continents from Canada to Germany. By bridging the gap between academia and practice and advocating for a stronger international presence within the Society, Lee has significantly enriched ASLA’s global perspective and strengthened the bonds of the international professional community.

Jose de Jesus Leal, FASLA

José de Jesús Leal, FASLA, has been a transformative leader in advancing ASLA’s work at the intersection of climate action, biodiversity, and Indigenous sovereignty. Through his service on the Climate & Biodiversity Action Committee, Equity Subcommittee, and Climate & Biodiversity Action Plan Advisory Group, José has helped ensure that Indigenous perspectives and Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge are meaningfully reflected in the Society’s work.

José spearheaded the creation of the Indigenous Collective Group, now a growing network of more than 60 Indigenous and allied environmental stewards, and helped shape the Call to Action: Co-Create a Future that Heals Land and Culture announced at the 2024 ASLA Conference. He has also been a leading voice in national conference programming, moderating and presenting sessions that have equipped practitioners with strategies for co-stewardship, cultural healing, and environmental sustainability.

In 2025, his leadership helped guide ASLA’s historic adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He also helped advance several important initiatives at the ASLA Conference, including impactful educational programming, Indigenous youth outreach, and meaningful collaboration with the host Native Nation.

Robert Chipman, ASLA

Robert Chipman has spent years championing sketching as an essential skill for landscape architects. As the lead organizer of the annual sketch field session, Bob ensures the program’s consistent excellence and popularity by traveling to host cities months in advance to meticulously plan each session.

A foundational leader of the SKETCH! Studio, Bob helped grow the initiative from an informal coffee-area demonstration into a signature conference feature. He continues to collaborate with staff annually to refine the studio’s programming and materials, driven by a spirit of continuous improvement. Beyond his editorial and organizational contributions, Bob serves as a dedicated mentor for student sketch walks, providing emerging professionals with personal, skills-based guidance that fosters a deeper connection to place and the profession. Highlighting his generosity and initiative, Bob’s work ensures that hand-drawing remains a vital, creative force in modern design.

Andrea Gaffney, ASLA

Andrea Gaffney, ASLA, has provided exceptional leadership to the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS), helping sustain and strengthen one of the profession’s most important documentation programs during a period of significant change. As a member of the HALS Leadership Team since 2024 and Northern California HALS Chapter Liaison since 2025, Andrea has played a vital role in advancing the documentation and preservation of historic landscapes.

A talented documentarian in her own right, Andrea earned second place in the 2023 HALS Challenge for her documentation of the Foster City Levees. More importantly, she has emerged as a collaborative and steady leader at a critical moment for the program. Following changes at the National Park Service and the suspension of the long-running HALS Challenge, Andrea helped build consensus among HALS volunteers and was a key contributor to developing a new ASLA HALS Call to Action aligned with the America 250 initiative. She also created adaptable outreach materials that enabled chapter liaisons across the country to engage their local networks.

Known for her pragmatism, responsiveness, and positive spirit, Andrea has helped guide HALS through uncertainty while keeping members focused on meaningful action. Her leadership has strengthened both the HALS community and its mission to document and celebrate America’s historic landscapes.

Lynn Ewanow

Lynn Ewanow served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning and as Associate Dean for the College of Architecture, Planning and Design at Kansas State University. She also directed the Environmental Design Studies Program and the college’s International Programs. She retired in 2019 after 40 years at K-State—35 of them in administrative roles—working closely with students, faculty, staff, and university leadership. She earned her master’s degree in landscape architecture from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry. As an undergraduate at Keuka College, she completed a Bachelor of Psychology and a Bachelor of Art. She later completed the Management Development Program at Harvard University.

As Associate Dean, Lynn oversaw Student and Academic Services, the Environmental Design Studies Program (the first year of the five‑year master’s programs in Architecture; Interior Architecture and Product Design; Landscape Architecture; and Regional & Community Planning), and all aspects of the college’s Italian Studies Program, along with other international initiatives. Lynn’s leadership of the Italian Studies Program, along with colleagues in Italy, led to the creation of Kansas State University in Italy, which is formally recognized by the Italian Ministry of Higher Education. Kansas State University in Italy is celebrating its 20th year. Each year the number of students and faculty participating from all colleges in the university continues to grow.  Earlier in her administrative career, she served as Special Assistant to the Provost of Kansas State University.

Lynn’s involvement with the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB) began as a ROVE team member. She was elected to the LAAB in 2016, served two years as secretary, and became chair in 2022. Since completing her service, she has enjoyed working with two landscape architecture programs as they prepared for accreditation. 

Beyond LAAB, Lynn served on an education committee for the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) beginning in 2022 and is now starting her second three‑year term on ASLA’s Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System (LA/CES) review committee. Recently, she was invited by the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB) to join the Education Equivalency Work Group for Standards Comparison with the US and Philippines.  Lynn has served on two other CLARB Work Groups: LAAB and Council of Landscape Architecture Registration Board (CLARB) Working Group on International Equivalency and the Working Group on Experience Evaluation Guidance for CLARB Member Boards.

In addition to her professional service, Lynn is active in community arts programming as Chair and member of the Volland Foundation Advisory Council and is part of the leadership team developing the Meadowlark Cancer Program.

Sala Elise Patterson

Sala Elise Patterson is the recipient of the 2026 Bradford Williams Medal for writing in Landscape Architecture Magazine for “Elizabeth Kennedy’s Quiet Revolution,” published in October 2025. The award recognizes superior writing that advances understanding of landscape architecture through clarity, insight, and broader relevance.

Patterson’s selection honors her contribution to Landscape Architecture Magazine and to the profession’s ongoing dialogue through distinguished editorial work.

Andrew Malmuth

Andrew Malmuth is the recipient of the 2026 Bradford Williams Medal for writing about landscape architecture in an outside publication for “Property and Permanence,” published in Places Journal in May 2025. The award recognizes excellence in writing on landscape architecture-related topics in mainstream periodicals.

Malmuth’s selection acknowledges the impact of his contribution in bringing landscape architecture into a broader public and cultural context.