“With dedication and ingenuity, we can co-create solutions that transcend even our own expectations.”

Teresa Zbiciak is earning her master’s degree in landscape architecture with the aim of pursuing visionary, collaborative work that benefits communities. Teresa comes to the University of Michigan with a deeply ecological and creative foundation: after earning her bachelor’s degree in art and design from Grand Valley State University, Teresa ultimately followed a dream of working on organic farms, growing her knowledge of plants, fungi, and soil microbiomes — and radical sustainability — over many years as farm manager, landscaper, small business owner, traveler, and student.

Teresa’s experiences made it clear to her that sustainability required design to make daily life easier, not more complicated. The question was: how? When a landscape architect hired Teresa to illustrate a green infrastructure project, she introduced her to a new world that included collaborating with engineers and public officials and using plants instead of pipes to handle stormwater and improve water quality. The experience inspired Teresa and pointed her to a new path.

Now at U-M, Teresa is focused on connecting with others who share a vision for a better, healthier, more vibrant place to live, studying brownfield remediation, and learning novel approaches to revitalization. Her colleagues and professors describe her as “very intelligent, perennially creative, and dedicated to personal integrity and community engagement” and remark that she is “already positioning herself to be a strong leader in the field of landscape architecture.”

Following her graduation, Teresa intends to become a landscape architect and work in community-based coalitions that transform and revitalize degraded sites into places that support people, pollinators, and the cooling of the planet. She reflects, “With dedication and ingenuity, we can co-create solutions that transcend even our own expectations.”

CEW+ celebrates Teresa’s vision for her career as a landscape architect and names her a Margaret Dow Towsley Scholar.