Scholarship Recipients

Winner: 2026 Landscape Forms Shane Coen Scholarship for Diversity in Design

Zuri Askew is an honor Landscape Architecture student at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, also minoring in Construction Management. Zuri's work focuses on creating equitable, lively green spaces in communities that often lack access. Growing up in Norfolk's Coronado neighborhood, Zuri experienced a lack of accessible, community-focused outdoor areas which fueled her interest in landscape architecture. AS the current President of the student chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), Zuri spearheads projects that link students with design opportunities, mentorship, and civic involvement. Her commitment to community-centered design has earned her several awards and scholarship, including a feature in a WHRO article that showcased her vision for the old Coronado School site reimagined as filled with gardens, play areas, and places for people to gather. Beyond her studies, Zuri leads the "Reclaiming Coronado" project and remains dedicated to civic service while using design to empower communities.

Winner: Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship in Garden History and Design

Kailey Kruse is an environmental designer and graduate student at Arizona State University focused on sustainable research and design that creates reasonable landscape architecture across public and private contexts. Her design literacy is grounded in a commitment to improving the quality of life for people and the places they inhabit, with particular interest in how landscapes shape both physical and psychological well-being. She currently works with Arizona State on numerous projects, and is a Design and Education Specialist at ASU's Naturespace, where she engages with natural history collections and interpretive environments that foster public learning and ecological connection. Kailey hopes to advance a practice that bridges systems, infrastructure, and art to support more happy and healthy features. 

Winner: Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship in Garden History and Design

Lydia Olivier, MSRS, LEED BD+C is a graduate from the Lyle Center of Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona, and is currently pursuing a PhD degree in the department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. Her work integrates cultural landscape studies, garden history, and environmental education. As a former University Climate Change Coalition (UC3) Fellow, she contributed to university climate action planning by foregrounding environmental justice narratives. Oliver is a co-founder of a primary school garden and has written numerous successful grants supporting food access and environmental education through her ten-year board membership with the non-profit Garden School Foundation in Los Angeles. Her research and professional practice focus on gardens and cultural landscapes as designed environments that mediate ecological knowledge, social values, and educational experience.