UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Two faculty members in the Stuckeman School’s Department of Landscape Architecture in the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State were honored by the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) at the international organization’s 2025 annual conference in Portland in March.
Titled “Processes + Impacts,” this year’s conference posed the question: “How can we understand and demonstrate the true impact of landscape architecture?”
Chingwen Cheng, Stuckeman School director and professor of landscape architecture, was presented with the President’s Award, which recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the organization and the landscape architecture profession. Cheng served as chair of the 2025 CELA conference and past president for the 2024-25 academic year.
She is co-chair of the Climate Agency and Climate Resilience subcommittee of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) Biodiversity and Climate Actions Committee and is a member on the ASLA Climate and Biodiversity Action Plans Advisory Group. Cheng previously co-chaired the ASLA Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network and was recognized by the ASLA Arizona chapter as the 2020 Educator of the Year.
Sara Hadavi, assistant professor of landscape architecture, earned the Outstanding Paper Award for her submission titled “Children’s contact with nature in low-income communities: Parents’ and teachers’ perspectives.” Emily Moore, a Kansas State University master of landscape architecture graduate who studied under Hadavi from 2023 to 2024, co-authored the paper.
In their work, the pair investigates how children in economically disadvantaged areas engage with natural environments, focusing on the perceptions of parents and teachers. The study centers on an elementary school within the Kansas City Public Schools district, a region marked by historical redlining and ongoing social and spatial inequalities.
“Parents and teachers play a critical role in shaping children's quality of life. Enhancing their knowledge and awareness of how contact with nature supports children's physical and cognitive development is essential for informed decision-making around daily routines; and this need is even more pressing in disinvested communities that lack access to quality green spaces,” said Hadavi, who is an affiliate researcher in the Hamer Center for Community Design. “This paper proposes an approach to identifying barriers that prevent children’s interactions with nature and facilitating their access to green spaces. It also calls for further in-depth research to inform more effective planning and design policies that support children's engagement with nature.”
This year, 349 abstracts and 39 full-text submissions were received to be considered for inclusion in “Landscape Research Record” (LRR), the CELA conference proceedings publication. After a rigorous double-blind peer review, one outstanding paper is selected for the Outstanding Paper Award by a vote among the conference’s track co-chairs. A total of 24 papers were accepted for publication in the 2024 LRR.
CELA is comprised of nearly all the programs of higher learning in landscape architecture in the United States and Canada. Its mission is to support educators to advance the profession of landscape architecture.