Professor of Landscape Architecture; Water, Cities + Mobility + Built Environment
Joan Iverson Nassauer is Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Using ecological design and social science methods, she investigates how rural landscapes can embody healthy ecological processes and, simultaneously, be valued by their inhabitants. For decades, her work has aimed to articulate the values of rural communities and promote environmental health through rural landscape change. In 1992, she began serving on the founding board of the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture. Working in transdisciplinary teams to develop alternative scenarios for agricultural policy and design and assess related rural landscape futures, she has helped to demonstrate how agriculture could adapt to broader social and environmental realities. Some of this work is described in detail in From the Corn Belt to the Gulf (RFF Press 2007). Her investigations of Corn Belt farmers’ perceptions of rural landscapes have suggested how innovations to support environmental health can be designed to be valued by different types of farmers. In several projects, she has worked with rural communities to envision multi-functional approaches to managing local landscape change. With USDA NRCS, she supported development of landscape ecological approaches to conservation. She was named Distinguished Scholar by the International Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE) (2007) and Distinguished Practitioner of Landscape Ecology (1998). She is the author of more than 80 refereed papers and books. http://www.joan-nassauer.com/
