Dawn is a senior lecturer in landscape architecture with a fundamental belief that Landscape Architecture must be driven by the pursuit of environmental justice and mitigating the impacts of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution.

Her design career has traversed disciplines and scales from urban design, architecture, garden design and product design, between the public and private realm, to eventually grounding itself in landscape architecture. Her experience and understanding of our cognate disciplines drive her interest in collaborative working and interdisciplinary practice and teaching.

She co-founded the following initiatives to support and drive these areas in education and practice:

  • The Experimental Sustainability Studios, an extra-curricular initiate which aimed to boost climate skills and knowledge literacy through a series of interdisciplinary pop-up studios, think-tanks and seminars, often involving external stakeholders. Dawn was recognised as ‘sustainability champion’ finalist, in the Green Gown awards (2021) for this impactful, on-going work.
  • The Frameworks for Environmental Justice Colab Studio, a collaboration with Birmingham City Council and The Women’s Dolphin Centre, a Birmingham based charity. This project explores the unequal distribution and access to environmental resources and healthy green space, the outcomes of which have supported Birmingham City Council Planners, towards embedding environmental justice in their developmental framework and planning guidelines.

She is an Academic member of the Landscape Institute and was the sole academic member of the steering group supporting the development of a new competency framework and routes to chartership.

With an emerging research profile in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), she has been exploring graduate outcomes for ESD, methods for embedding sustainability in design education and considering the value of landscape architectural education in that discussion. Examples of on-going research in these areas are as follows:

  • Sustainable Systems Thinking – A Threshold Concept for Education for Sustainable Development and engagement with the UNSDGs
  • The Vertical Ecology Studio: Accelerating Learning towards Systems Thinking Competencies in Landscape Architecture Design Education