Announcing the 2026 LAF Olmsted Scholars

The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) is pleased to recognize 97 exceptional student leaders, including the two national winners and six finalists.

Named for Frederick Law Olmsted, the LAF Olmsted Scholars Program is the premier leadership recognition program for landscape architecture students. Now in its 19th year, the program honors students who are using ideas, influence, communication, service, and leadership to advance sustainable design and foster human and societal benefits.

The program recognizes one outstanding student from each accredited landscape architecture program in the U.S. and Canada. This year, 56 graduate and 41 undergraduate students were nominated by their faculty for their exceptional leadership potential. These students earn the designation of 2026 LAF Olmsted Scholar and join a community of 1,351 LAF Olmsted Scholars named since the program’s inception in 2008.

From the nominees, two independent juries selected the graduate and undergraduate national award winners and finalists, who receive financial awards and additional recognition. Students are both honored for past achievements and recognized for their future potential to influence the landscape architecture discipline.

2026 National Olmsted Scholars

Miriam Hernandez Medina, a master's student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, is the graduate 2026 National Olmsted Scholar and recipient of the $25,000 prize. Miriam is a Mexican architect and third-year Master of Landscape Architecture student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Trained at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM, 2018) and shaped by her work at Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, she engages in territories where power, politics, and ecology collide. Her practice and scholarship centers contested borders and the waterways that define them, treating them as social and ecological systems rather than fixed lines. With this award, Miriam plans to continue building on a cross-border initiative that reimagines the Rio Grande/Bravo River as a shared landscape that links communities through repair and design. Through a collaborative research project and deep field engagement, Miriam aims to develop an unprecedented digital atlas and framework for designing connective waterways across borders and landscapes.

Henry Ley, a student at Cornell University, is the undergraduate 2026 National Olmsted Scholar and recipient of the $15,000 prize. Henry's upbringing in Asheville, North Carolina and the natural world drew him to landscape architecture and the opportunity to design spaces that foster connection to the built world. He has developed a strong interest in resiliency design, and his senior thesis addresses river flooding in Western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. With the support of the Olmsted scholarship, Henry hopes to expand on his thesis research and provide landscape practice solutions for how communities can adapt to climate risk, economic transition, and growing inequity. Through organized workshops of stakeholders-- including local officials, community members, ecologists, and design professionals-- Henry will facilitate informed conversations surrounding the potential that landscape architecture can have on the future of resilient cities. 

National Olmsted Scholar Finalists

The three graduate finalists (top row) each receive a $5,000 award, and the three undergraduate finalists (bottom row) each receive a $3,000 award. 

2026 LAF Olmsted Scholars (Graduate)

In addition to the winner and finalists, the graduate nominees from each university are recognized as 2026 LAF Olmsted Scholars, which denotes distinguished student leadership in landscape architecture.

First row: Victor Almaraz Murguia, University of Texas at Arlington | Jawan Bani Yaseen, Iowa State University | Emily Beach, University of Georgia | Matthew Bell, Morgan State University | Andres Beltran, Florida International University | Martin Benzinger, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry | Shristi Bhandari, Kent State University | Veronica Cancio, University of Florida | Kat Chavez, Cal Poly Pomona | Indra Clark, Boston Architectural College 

Second row: Devin Derr, University of Michigan | Ian Dilla Mora, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Bryn Distler, Virginia Tech | Akum Emeka-Maduka, University of Manitoba | Mehri Farnaz, Texas Tech University | Nina Fritsch, University of Massachusetts Amherst | Caitlin Garlow, University of Maryland | Shima Goodarzi, North Dakota State University | Ben Hancock, Mississippi State University | Holly Hearn, University of New Mexico 

Third row: Caitlin Holt, Auburn University | Muhaiminul Islam, Kansas State University | Md Farhan Asef Jit, Arizona State University | Kristen Juen, University of Texas at Austin | Andie Kennedy, University of Pennsylvania | Amanda Kesler, Washington University in St. Louis | Kai Koopman, Clemson University | Lara Kurosky, University of Toronto | Rasha Lama, Rhode Island School of Design | Kate Latimore, University of California, Berkeley

Fourth row: Ash Limes Castellana, Temple University | Margaret Marando, University of Tennessee | Musa Matiwane, City College of New York | Stephen McCausland, University of Calgary | Erik Norwood, Illinois Institute of Technology | Sarah Obra-Nakata, University of Hawaii at Manoa | Adrian Ochoa, University of Oklahoma | Andrea Padilla Guerrero, North Carolina State University | Renée Peters, University of Arizona | Gabrielle Ragusa, University of Cincinnati 

Fifth row: Oscar Rios, Texas A&M University | Alberto Salgado, Cornell University | Piper Sallquist, University of Washington | Maëlis Sankou, University of Montreal | Ramtin Shafaghati, University of Guelph | Ruth Shatkay, University of Virginia | Abby Shaw, Ball State University | Ashley Stephens, University of Southern California | Allison Swanka, The Ohio State University | Rachel Thody, University of Colorado Denver

Sixth row: Kevin Wong, University of British Columbia | Eli Woodward, Utah State University

2026 LAF Olmsted Scholars (underGraduate)

In addition to the winner and finalists, the undergraduate nominees from each university are recognized as 2026 LAF Olmsted Scholars, which denotes distinguished student leadership in landscape architecture.

First row: Rachel Bowers, Mississippi State University | Yuke Cai, Iowa State University | Lisa Cohen, Boston Architectural College | Laura Crocker, University of Maryland | Yasmeena Elmahdy, Rutgers University | Sophia Folwell, West Virginia University | Hayden Germanis, University of Florida | David Gomez, Texas Tech University | Louise Halaburt, Colorado State University | Cameron Hill, Utah State University

Second row: Isabel Iocca, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Aimee Jao, Texas A&M University | Soleil Jevtitch, Thomas Jefferson University | Serine Kao, Purdue University | Talya Karmen-Chan, Temple University | Ivan Keath, Cal Poly Pomona | Grace Kirkpatrick, University of Massachusetts Amherst | Amanda Lam, Clemson University | Calvin Lo, The Pennsylvania State University | Abbi McDonald, University of Arkansas 

Third row: Treasa McHugh, University of Georgia | Makena McLaughlin, Virginia Tech | Lindsay McSweeney, University of Delaware | Anna Melchers, University of Kentucky | Chloe Meyer, Oklahoma State University | Kamron Neal, North Carolina A&T State University | Mikala Noonan, Louisiana State University | Josie Paik, University of Oregon | Emily Pham, University of Guelph | Kaitlyn Ray, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Fourth row: Ella Roney, Washington State University | Matt Saulino, University of Rhode Island | Beth Sessions, University of Nebraska- Lincoln | Tatum St. Louis, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry | Haley Trolio, The Ohio State University | Emma Weir, University of Washington | Ava Yon, Michigan State University

Thank you to our sponsors

The LAF Olmsted Scholars Program is made possible with support from: Design Workshop, EDSA, Field Operations, Hart Howerton, HOK, IRONSMITH, LandDesign, OJB, OLIN, Sasaki, Stantec, SWA, Steven G. King, FASLA, and Bill and Kathy Main, Hon. ASLA.

Thank you to our 2026 juries

The jurors for the graduate awards were:

• Alexa Bush, Director of Planning and Development, City of Detroit/ President, Landscape Architecture Foundation
• Gretchen Wilson, Principle and co-founder, Dig Studio/ President-Elect, ASLA
• Sara Hadavi, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, The Penn State University
• Gary Sorge, Vice President, Stantec
• Issam Azzam, 2025 National Olmsted Scholar (Graduate)
   

The jurors for the undergraduate awards were:

• Elaine Kearney, Managing Principal, TBG/ President-Elect, Landscape Architecture Foundation
• Kona Gray, Principal, EDSA
• Sanjukta Sen, Associate Partner, Field Operations
• Astrid Hoffman, Principal, EDSA
• Jason King, Writer, Walker Macy
• Daniel Ortega, Director + Professor, University of Nevada
• Olive Tang, Landscape Designer, LPA/ 2025 Olmsted Scholar (Undergraduate)