EDRA CORE Featured Projects

Integrating a Resilience Scorecard and Landscape Performance into a Geodesign Process, a research project conducted by Dr. Galen D. Newman and his team, received 2020 EDRA Certification of Research Excellence.

Dr. Galen D. Newman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Texas A&M University. He also serves as Associate Department Head, Coordinator of the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture Program, Director of the Center for Housing and Urban Development, and the Youngblood Endowed Professor of Residential Land Development. Dr. Newman's research interests include urban regeneration, land use science, spatial analytics, community resilience, and design performance. His research focuses on the integration of urban regeneration and urban flood resilience. He has over 60 peer reviewed articles and his work has been published in many high-quality peer-reviewed outlets. Dr. Newman has been funded through numerous internal and external funding sources including the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Environmental Health totaling over 30 million dollars. He has won many awards for his research including the Excellence in Research and Creative Scholarship Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture and the Best Paper Award from the Journal of the American Planning Association. He has also led many efforts to provide service-learning opportunities which have also won national and state awards including five American Society of Landscape Architects National Awards (ASLA), 20+ ASLA, Texas Chapter Awards, 2 American Planning Association, Texas Chapter Awards, being designated as both a Service-Learning Faculty Fellow and Student Success Faculty Fellow at TAMU, and two Certificates of Research Excellence from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA CORE).

Developing a Social Media Data Based Post-Occupancy Evaluation Method: New Understandings of Social and Physiological Attributes of Designed Waterscapes, a research project conducted by Dr. Bo Zhang and his team, received 2020 EDRA Certification of Research Excellence.

Dr. Bo Zhang is a landscape architect, urban designer, architect, and LEED certified professional. He is currently an assistant professor of Landscape Architecture at Oklahoma State University, where he teaches landscape constructions, communications, open space design, and urban design. He is an ardent educator and designer who intends to convey his practice experience, intellectual thinking, and communication skills to the students. His studios are featured with the pursuit of artistic quality, emphasis of imagination and experimentation, rigorous training of hand and digital skills, and connections to contemporary theoretical issues. His students were placed in 20 domestic and international competitions and awards. Also, Dr. Zhang supports student research in landscape architecture at different levels. Dr. Zhang’s research interests cover three areas, such as crowd sourcing data methods in design disciplines, ecological design and planning methodology, and Asian influences on designed landscapes in US in the 19th century. His research was funded by Winterthur Research Fellowship, Rockefeller Archive Center, Chiang Ching-kwo Foundation, Oklahoma Humanities Council, Oklahoma State University, and others. His research was recognized by multiple awards, including the 2019 ASLA National Professional Honor Award of Research and the 2020 EDRA Certificate of Research Excellence. In addition to his research topics above, Dr. Bo Zhang has taught, lectured, and conducted more than 50 workshops and courses on Research Methods for Architects, Landscape Architects, and Urban Planners nationally and internationally.