Thaïsa Way

Thaïsa Way is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). She also serves as Director of Garden & Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard research institution in Washington, D.C., and holds the title of Professor Emerita at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments.

Her research focuses on landscape history, theory, and design, with an emphasis on gender, race, and class dynamics within the profession. Key themes include post-industrial urban landscapes, contested narratives in design history, and environmental justice. Way challenges traditional canons to center marginalized voices in landscape architecture.

Her notable publications include Unbounded Practices (2009), which earned the J.B. Jackson Book Award, and River Cities/City Rivers (2018), analyzing urban ecological contexts. She co-edited Now Urbanism (2014) and GGN 1999-2018 (2018), exploring firm histories and urban futures.

Way has received prestigious awards such as the Rome Prize (2016) and continues to advocate for inclusive pedagogy and practice. Her current work interrogates systemic inequities in landscape architecture through collaborative research and teaching.