Landscape Architecture program adds new tenure-line faculty

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Department of Landscape Architecture within the Stuckeman School at Penn State is expanding with the addition of three tenure-track faculty members.

Stephen Mainzer and Paul Daniel Marriott, who had been on fixed-term appointments with the department, have been named assistant professor and associate professor, respectively. Leann Andrews will join the faculty as an assistant affiliate professor in the department in 2019-20 before joining the department full time as a resident assistant professor in fall 2020.

Mainzer is no stranger to the department or the Stuckeman School, having earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in landscape architecture and his dual-title doctorate in architecture and human dimensions of natural resources and the environment at Penn State. He has held positions as a lecturer, visiting assistant professor and assistant teaching professor since 2014, teaching numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in landscape architecture and geodesign.

A 2018 recipient of the national Architecture Research Centers Consortium Dissertation Award, Mainzer earned the 2017 Penn State Alumni Association Dissertation Award, Distinguished Doctoral Scholar Medal in 2017. He was also a finalist for the Council of Graduate Schools/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award the same year.

Mainzer’s research interests are in the decision dynamics of coupled human and natural environments and his papers have been published in three refereed journals. He has been a speaker at numerous national and international conferences and symposia, and he is also heavily involved with the Ecology + Design interdisciplinary research initiative within the Stuckeman School.

Mainzer also has experience in professional practice, having served as a planner for the Renaissance Planning Group (Orlando, Florida), a landscape designer at PBS&J, Inc. and LandDesign, Inc. (both in Alexandria, Virginia) and a designer at Hargreaves Associates in Boston.

Marriott earned his bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture at Penn State, his master’s in regional planning at Cornell University and his doctorate in landscape architecture at the University of Edinburgh. He has been with the department as an assistant teaching professor since 2017.

A licensed landscape architect, he is the principal of Paul Daniel Marriott + Associates, a consulting firm specializing in landscape, preservation, transportation and planning in Washington, D.C.

Prior to starting his consulting business in 2004, Marriott was a program associate and then the director of the Rural Heritage/Historic Roads Program with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.. He also served as a lecturer within the landscape design graduate program at George Washington University for 25 years.

At Penn State, Marriott has taught advanced design studio courses as well as materials, community planning, contemporary trends and professional practice courses. He is recognized for his diverse and interdisciplinary approach to landscape architecture history and cultural landscapes.

Marriott is known internationally for his work in historic preservation and has written two books and numerous published papers and articles on the subject. He has been a UNESCO reviewer for World Heritage sites, featured on the PBS documentary, ’10 Streets That Changed America,’ and his research on landscape and roads was recently featured at the Garden Museum in London. Marriott is a member of the board of trustees for the National Association for Olmsted Parks.

Andrews comes to Penn State from the University of Washington (UW) where she earned her doctorate in the built environment, her master’s in landscape architecture and a graduate certificate in global health. She holds a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from Ohio State.

Andrews has served as a lecturer within the Department of Landscape Architecture at UW since 2013, leading introductory to advanced technical and studio courses and managing projects in the Green Futures Research and Design Lab. Andrews co-directs the InterACTION Labs, a transdisciplinary action research program in partnership with UW, three Peruvian universities and now Penn State, focused on understanding and improving human and ecological health through participatory design with an informal urban community living in floating houses on the Amazon River in Iquitos, Peru.

Andrews also comes from professional practice. She has worked in several firms including URS (now AECOM), an interdisciplinary engineering firm in Cleveland, Ohio, and is now a director of the non-profit Traction. Andrews is SEED certified and a registered landscape architect in the state of Washington.

Andrews is a member of numerous committees and organizations, including: the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) Advisory Circle to the executive committee; the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) Emeritus Board; the Center for Technological, Biomedical and Environmental Research in Peru (CITBM); Architects without Borders, Seattle Chapter; and the National Council of Science, Technology and Technological Innovation (CONCYTEC) in Peru.