UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) has named Penn State landscape architecture student Julia Li as the undergraduate 2024 National Olmsted Scholar. It is the third time in the last five years that a landscape architecture student in the College of Arts and Architecture’s Stuckeman School has been selected as the recipient of the Olmsted honor, which comes with a $15,000 prize at the undergraduate level and is considered the highest honor for students studying landscape architecture.
Keith Famiano, a 2023 master’s degree alumnus, won the graduate Olmsted Scholar award last year, and Anjelyque Easley, a 2020 bachelor of landscape architecture alumna, won the undergraduate Olmsted Scholar award in 2019.
Born and raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Li is a Schreyer Honors College scholar and an integrated undergraduate-graduate student at Penn State who is pursuing both a bachelor of landscape architecture and a bachelor of science in meteorology and atmospheric science. She intends to graduate with her undergraduate degrees in spring 2025 and begin her master of science in landscape architecture studies in fall 2025.
“I am incredibly proud of Julia for earning this award, which recognizes both her past successes in the department and her future promise of leadership and innovation in the profession,” said Roxi Thoren, head and professor of landscape architecture.
Li, who just wrapped up her fourth year at Penn State, is the professional development chair for Penn State’s chapter of the National Association of Minority Landscape Architects. She is a past board member and current member of the Club Swim Team and the Penn State chapter of Circle K, a service organization that promotes fellowship, leadership and service as an extension of Kiwanis International.
Li said she is “incredibly honored” to have been named the undergraduate 2024 LAF Olmsted National Scholar.
“Receiving this award is a reflection of our department’s, and the larger [landscape architecture] profession’s, values in environmental and social justice,” she said. “It makes me as determined as ever to work as a designer and scientist who can contribute to both defining pressing climate challenges and creating tangible design solutions to those issues.”
Li plans to focus her graduate studies on how public perceptions of weather forecasting and climate change can affect the way people move through and interact with the built and natural environment, specifically in coastal communities threatened by climate change. She will be studying under the guidance of Peter Stempel, associate professor of landscape architecture and a co-funded faculty member with the Penn State Institute of Energy and the Environment.
“Julia’s project proposal will bring cutting-edge climate change resilience research from Penn State to rural parks in Tanzania, creating tangible solutions that mitigate the consequences of social inequality,” said Thoren.
The LAF Olmsted Scholars Program recognizes and supports students with exceptional leadership potential who are using ideas, influence, communication, service and leadership to advance sustainable design and foster human and societal benefits. Three finalists and one winner are named at both the graduate and undergraduate student levels every year.
Olivia Krum, a 2023 alumna, was named a finalist for the undergraduate National Olmsted Scholar award last year.
“The Stuckeman School's Department of Landscape Architecture has demonstrated consistent excellence in design education in that our students have been given the highest national recognition as LAF Olmsted Fellows, which signifies their contribution to the field with embedded social impacts to local communities,” said Chingwen Cheng, Stuckeman School director and professor of landscape architecture. “We are proud to celebrate the outstanding achievements of our students as part of the legacy of landscape architecture at Penn State.”
Two independent juries of leaders in the landscape architecture profession selected this year’s winners and finalists from a group of 52 graduate students and 42 undergraduate students who were nominated by their faculty for being exceptional student leaders. More than 1,163 LAF Olmsted Scholars and finalists have been named since program’s inception in 2008.