The University of Southern California School of Architecture announces the appointment of Kelly Shannon as Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture Program and Landscape Architecture Discipline Head, effective January 1, 2015. She joins the USC faculty as Professor of Architecture.

Dr. Shannon is currently Professor of Landscape Architecture in the Institute of Urbanism and Landscape of the Oslo School of Architecture. She also holds a part-time appointment as Professor of Urbanism, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture at KU Leuven.

Dr. Shannon has held teaching positions in Europe, Asia and in the United States and has lectured throughout the world. Her design research is at the intersection of interpretative mapping, projective cartography, urbanism and landscape. Her teaching, research and  practice engages numerous contexts (Belgium, Estonia, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Morocco, etc.), primarily in the public sector, focused on the development of robust landscape structures as a form of resilience to deal with contemporary design challenges at the territorial and urban design scales.

Dr. Shannon is co-founder of Research Urbanism and Architecture (RUA) whose projects include the master plan revision for Cantho, Vietnam approved by the Prime Minister. She co-edits the book series UFO: Explorations of Urbanism (Park Books, Zurich), is co-editor of the Journal of Landscape Architecture (JoLA) and co-authored The Landscape of Contemporary Infrastructure. Before entering academia, she obtained her architect's license (NY) and worked at Mitchell/Giurgola (NYC), Hunt Thompson (London), Renzo Piano Building Workshop (Genoa) and Gigantes/Zenghelis (Athens). She received a B.Arch from Carnegie Mellon University, an M.Arch from the Berlage Institute, and a Doctorate in Applied Sciences: Architecture from KU Leuven.

“The landscape program at the USC School of Architecture has grown steadily, and with a new director as accomplished as Kelly Shannon, the program is poised for global impact in cross-disciplinary research and cross-territorial practice,” said Dean Qingyun Ma.

The USC landscape architecture program has a longstanding commitment to urban and environmental discourse. Its impact has expanded with the leadership of retired director Robert Harris and through cross­-disciplinary connections with the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and the Spatial Sciences Institute of the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. The Master of Landscape Architecture First Professional Curriculum and Advanced Standing Curriculum are accredited by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board.