Faculty + Staff

Laura Musacchio, Ph.D.

Contributing to the Intellectual Foundation for Landscape Architecture

As an educator and researcher, Dr. Musacchio works to advance the intellectual foundation of landscape architecture by creating new approaches, methods, and outcomes that translate and integrate scientific theory and knowledge into the design process. Through her scientific investigations, she discovers new knowledge and innovations for the creation of sustainable metropolitan landscapes and the protection of environmentally beneficial cultural landscapes.

Her investigations test alternative hypotheses for how human-created restoration and cultivation patterns affect biodiversity and hydrological conservation in metropolitan landscapes. Some of her recent research projects include Restoration in the City Project, Conservation Design in the Midwest, and the Small Parks Project.  These projects help people understand the potential benefits of urban greening and landscape restoration for their particular environmental and community problems.

At the international level, Dr. Musacchio participates as an editorial board member of two scientific journals, Landscape Ecology and Landscape and Urban Planning.

Dr. Musacchio also participates as a researcher with the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research Project (link) in urban ecology.

Teaching the Next Generation of Environmental Professionals

Dr. Musacchio seeks to stimulate students’ creativity and curiosity about human-nature interactions in metropolitan and cultural landscapes. Since this subject resides in no one particular discipline, she believes students need exposure to many different ideas, people, and places. Her own education reflects this philosophy. She received her B.L.A. (magna cum laude) and M.L.A. from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (link) and her Ph.D. (emphases in landscape ecology, environmental planning, and environmental policy) from Texas A&M University (link). In addition, her studies have occurred in many different vegetation communities including the Sonoran Desert, California chaparral, post oak savanna, blackland prairie, coastal prairies and marshes, eastern deciduous forest, and tall grass prairie.

She has been a faculty member in Landscape Architecture since 2003 and joined the Ph.D. and M.S. program in Conservation Biology (link) in 2005. She strives to educate not only landscape architects but also the next generation of environmental professionals. For design students, she offers a perspective that will help them create more memorable and sustainable places within a bioregional framework.  For urban ecology and natural resource students, she can enhance their understanding about how human values and perception shape a city’s environmental stewardship agenda and its environmental performance outcomes. For planning students, she can explain why ecology should be at the forefront of designing more sustainable, green cities through participative processes.

Dr. Musacchio has recently taught these courses: LA 5204 Landscape Ecology, LA 5203 Ecological Design Studio, LA 8203 Making Regional Landscape Space, and LA 8210 Conservation Design and Planning.

Recent Awards

• Planetizen: The Planning and Development Network’s 2006 Top 10 Books for Ann Forsyth and Laura Musacchio’s Designing Small Parks: A Manual Addressing Social and Ecological Concerns (link).
• Certificate of Merit for Unbuilt Works for Designing Small Parks, Minnesota Chapter of the America Society of Landscape Architects, 2006.
• Roy Jones Award for Outstanding Research, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota, 2005.

Recent Publications

Musacchio, L. and A. Forsyth. 2006. Small things reconsidered. Parks & Recreation 41, 41:43–47.

Forsyth, A. and L. Musacchio. 2005. Designing Small Parks: A Manual Addressing Social and Ecological Concerns. New York: John Wiley and Sons (http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471736805.html).

Musacchio, L., E. Ozdenerol, M. Bryant, and T. Evans. 2005. Changing landscapes, changing disciplines: seeking to understand interdisciplinarity in landscape ecological change research. Landscape and Urban Planning 73(4):326–338.

Forsyth, A. And L. Musacchio. 2005. Why small parks matter. Planning 71, 11:32–35.

Musacchio, L., J. Ewan, and R. Yabes. 2005. Regional landscape system protection in the urbanizing desert southwest: Lessons from the Phoenix metropolitan region, U.S.A. Landscape Review 10:58–68.

Musacchio, L. and J. Wu (Guest Editors). 2004. Collaborative Research in Landscape-Scale Ecosystem Studies: Emerging Trends in Urban and Regional Ecology. Special issue. Urban Ecosystems 7(3):175–314.

Musacchio, L., K. Crewe, F. Steiner, and J. Schmidt.  2003.  The future of agriculture landscape preservation in the Phoenix Metropolitan Region. Landscape Journal 22(2):140–154.

Musacchio, L., and W. Grant. 2002. Agricultural production and wetland habitat quality in a coastal prairie ecosystem: Simulated effects of alternative resource policies on land-use decisions. Ecological Modelling 150:23–43.

Musacchio, L. R. and R. Coulson. 2001. A landscape ecological planning process for wetland, waterfowl, and farmland conservation. Landscape and Urban Planning 56(3–4):125–147.