The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) has announced the two winners and six finalists for its 2019 Olmsted Scholars Program, the premier leadership recognition program for landscape architecture students.
Areti Athanasopoulos, a master’s student at the University of Colorado Denver, and Anjelyque Easley, an undergraduate at the Pennsylvania State University, were selected as the 2019 National Olmsted Scholars, winning the $25,000 graduate and $15,000 undergraduate prizes, respectively.
Also honored are six National Olmsted Scholar Finalists. The graduate finalists, who each receive a $5,000 award, are: Jennifer Lauer (SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry), Fatema Maswood (University of Washington), and Grace Mitchell Tada (University of California, Berkeley). The undergraduate finalists, who each receive a $3,000 award, are: Madelynne Clark (Ball State University), Adriana Hernandez Aguirre (Texas A&M University), and Christian Moore (The Ohio State University).
Two independent juries of leaders in the landscape architecture profession selected the winners and finalists from a group of 49 graduate and 37 undergraduate students who were nominated by their faculty for being exceptional student leaders. These top students earned the designation of 2019 LAF Olmsted Scholar and join the community of 720 LAF Olmsted Scholars named since the program’s inception in 2008.
“The 2019 LAF Olmsted Scholars promise to carry on Frederick Law Olmsted’s advocacy and activism for environmental and societal benefits through landscape architecture,” said LAF President and Graduate Jury Chair Stephanie Rolley, FASLA, AICP. “They have the vision, knowledge, and leadership capacity – bolstered by innovative thinking – to address some of the greatest challenges of our time.”
Now in its twelfth year, the Olmsted Scholars Program recognises and supports students with exceptional leadership potential who are using ideas, influence, communication, service, and leadership to advance sustainable planning and design and foster human and societal benefits.
