Joan Iverson Nassauer is Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of Natural Resources and Environment. She was named Fellow by the American Society of Landscape Architects (1992), Fellow of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (2007), and Distinguished Practitioner of Landscape Ecology in the US (1998) and Distinguished Scholar (2007) by the International Association of Landscape Ecology. Teaching focuses on landscape ecology and landscape perception with applications in design and planning of metropolitan and agricultural watersheds. She has recently served as Visiting Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects (2006), Farrand Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California-Berkeley (2003, and Miegunyah Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia (2001).

Awards and Grants:
Nassauer has served as PI or co-PI managing more than $4,000,000 in externally funded research with federal, state, and foundation support. Recent projects have included work supported by the Genesee Institute to investigate Vacant Land as a Natural Asset for Flint, MI, and the surrounding Genesee County, work with co-PI's Dan Brown and Scott Page and supported by the National Science Foundation to investigate spatial land use changes at the rural-urban interface, and work supported by the USDA Forest Service to investigate alternative agricultural landscape scenarios for the Upper Mississippi River Basin.

Research Interests:
Professor Nassauer's work focusing on the relationship between aesthetics and ecology has offered strategies for basing ecological design on strong science and interdisciplinary collaboration, and these strategies have been applied internationally. Her research investigating public acceptance and the cultural sustainability of environmentally beneficial landscape change has received numerous awards, including the First Place award for Environmental Research from the Federal Highway Administration in 2003, and National ASLA Merit Awards for Research.

Current/Recent Research:
Current research includes retrofitting cities - particularly brownfields - for ecological function and water quality, design and perception of ecologically innovative alternatives to sprawl, and using alternative policy scenarios and futures to anticipate landscape change. She has worked with colleagues in ecology, civil engineering, forestry, and hydrology to develop and implement ecosystem management plans for rural landscapes, for urban watersheds, and to retrofit 19th century cities and 20th century suburbs to improve their ecological health – particularly through low impact storm water management and brownfield redevelopment. In the past decade she has done this work by developing normative scenarios and measuring perception of alternative landscape futures in web-based surveys.

Teaching Interests:
Teaching focuses on landscape ecology and landscape perception, with applications in design and planning of agricultural and metropolitan watersheds.

Selected Publications:

• Nassauer, J. I., and Opdam, P. (In Press). Design in science: Extending the landscape ecology paradigm. Landscape Ecology.
• Nassauer, J. I., Santelmann, M. V., Scavia, D. 2007. From the Corn Belt to the Gulf: Societal and Environmental Implications of Alternative Agricultural Futures. Resources for the Future Press, Washington, D. C.
• Gobster, P.H. , Nassauer, J. I., Daniel, T.C., Fry, G. 2007. The shared landscape: What does aesthetics have to do with ecology? Landscape Ecology 22: 959-972.
• Nassauer, J. I., 2007. Cultural Sustainability: Aligning Aesthetics and Ecology. In Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism. A. Carlson and S. Lintott, eds., Columbia University Press, New York. pp.363-379. Reprinted from Placing Nature, J. I. Nassauer (ed.) 1997.
• Nassauer, J. I. 2002. Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames. Pp.196-206. Reprinted from Landscape Journal, 1995. In Theory in Landscape Architecture: A reader. S. Swaffield, ed. University of Pennsylvania Press, 265 pp.
• Nassauer, J. I. 2002. Agricultural landscapes in harmony with nature. pp. 189-193. (Revised and reprinted from Visions of American Agriculture, Wm. Lockeretz, ed. 1997) In Fatal Harvest, Douglas Tompkins, ed. Island Press, Washington, D. C. 384 pp.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1999. Ecological Retrofit. Landscape Journal, 17:2, pp. 15-17.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1997. Cultural Sustainability: Aligning Aesthetics and Ecology, in Placing Nature: Culture and Landscape Ecology. J. Nassauer, ed. Island Press. Washington, D.C.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1997. Agricultural Landscapes in Harmony with Nature. In Visions of American Agriculture. Wm. Lockeretz, ed. Iowa State University Press. Ames, Iowa.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1995. Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames. Landscape Journal. 14:2, pp. 161-170.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1995. Culture and Changing Landscape Structure. Landscape Ecology. 10:4, pp. 229-237.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1993. Ecological Function and the Perception of Suburban Residential Landscapes. In: Managing Urban and High Use Recreation Settings. Gobster, P.A., ed. General Technical Report, USDA Forest Service North Central Station.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1992. The Appearance of Ecological Systems as a Matter of Policy. Landscape Ecology. 6:4, 239-250.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1989. Aesthetic Objectives for Agricultural Policy. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. 44:4.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1988. The Aesthetics of Horticulture: Neatness as a Form of Care. HortSci. 23:6.
• Coen, D., J.I. Nassauer, and R. Tuttle. 1987. Landscape Architecture in the Rural Landscape. Landscape Architecture Technical Information Series 10, 7:1. American Society at Landscape Architects, Washington, DC.
• Nassauer, J.I. 1986. Caring for the Countryside. University of Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station. St. Paul. AD-SB-3017.
• Nassauer, J. 1979. Managing for Naturalness in Wildlands and Agricultural Lands. Our National Landscape. USDA General Technical Report PSW-35, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, Berkeley, California.
• Nassauer, J. 1977. Natural Resource Decisions as Art. Proceedings of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture. Minneapolis, MN