Landscape architecture department head elected to CELA Academy of Fellows

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Roxi Thoren, professor and head of the Department of Landscape Architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School, has been elected to the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Academy of Fellows. Membership in the Academy of Fellows represents the highest level of achievement within CELA, which aims to “encourage, support and further education in the field of landscape architecture specifically related to teaching, research, scholarship and public service,” according to its website. The 2023 CELA Class of Fellows was inducted during the organization’s annual conference March 15-18 in San Antonio. “The CELA Academy of Fellows is an extraordinary group of pre-eminent landscape architecture educators and scholars,” said Thoren. “It is an incredible honor to be recognized by this group and humbling to be included among them.” Thoren, who came to Penn State in July 2021, focuses her work on the integration of productivity in landscape architectural design, which includes a series of research and design projects focused on agriculture, forestry and power. She was formerly at the University of Oregon, where she was an associate professor, department head and associate dean for academic affairs in the university’s College of Design. Thoren was previously named a Landscape Architecture Foundation Senior Fellow for Innovation and Leadership. She serves as the CELA representative to the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board and will serve as LAAB chair in 2024. Thoren was the co-recipient of the American Society of Landscape Architects Oregon chapter’s Lord and Schryver Award in 2016 for significant contributions to the achievement of women in landscape architecture. She was also a 2015 recipient of a CELA Excellence in Teaching Award. Thoren’s publications include “Farmscape: The Design of Productive Landscapes,” which she co-authored, and “Landscapes of Change: Innovative Designs Reinventing Sites,” which was named one of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ top 10 landscape architecture books of 2014. Prior to her work in academia, Thoren worked for design firm Wallace Roberts & Todd LLC in Philadelphia and Bruce Wardell Architects in Charlottesville, Virginia. She holds a master of landscape architecture and master of architecture from the University of Virginia and a bachelor of arts in architecture from Wellesley College. For more news from the Stuckeman School, follow us on Twitter @StuckemanNews.