Introduction

Trained as a landscape architect and urban designer, equipped with thinking from feminist and critical geography, Yiwei is interested to understand and explore the broader societal impacts of landscape architecture and urban design projects, especially on underrepresented minorities. She believes that a successful landscape project requires true community engagement and that designers need to explore creative and culturally sensitive ways to understand communities' needs and translate that into an ecologically functioned and socially responsive design.  Examples of her participated research include: "Franks Tract Futures," a project located in California Delta using intensive community engagement to achieve recreation, ecosystem, and water quality benefits; "Comparative Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Response Assessment (CAMERA)," a project using scenario-driven landscape visualization to convey environmental changes, climate change adaptation strategies, and lived experience for forest users in the Sierra Nevada; and "Xochimilco – Archeology, Ecology, and Urbanization," research on creative urban design strategies to balance urban development, heritage preservation, and environmental protection in Xochimilco, Mexico City. As an interdisciplinary researcher, she utilizes methods from psychology, sociology, cultural studies, and design fields. Her strengths are her working experience with immigrant women, children and youth, and communities with special needs; her advocates for participatory research, such as photovoice method, visual-driven engagement tools, and participatory GIS; and her fond in grounded theory and in-depth interviews.

She was serving as the Student Director of Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (2018 -2020) and is currently serving on two committees under the American Society of Landscape Architecture (2020 – 2022). She was the receipt of the 2019-20 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award at UC Davis. And she is the instructor for the 2020 Student ASLA Award LEARN, PLAY, THRIVE - Design Guidelines, and "Building Blocks" of Therapeutic Gardens for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Research keywords: Participatory Design; Inclusive Design; Therapeutic Garden; Environmental (In)Justice; Landscape Performance; Green Infrastructures

Courses Taught Recently

• Contemporary Issues in Landscape Architecture (LA 482, coming spring 2022)
• Graphic Communication for Landscape Architects (LA 116, coming fall 2021)
• Planting Design II (LA 325)
• Housing and Community Planning (LA 326)
• Site System II (LA 346)

Education Background 

• Ph.D., Geography, Department of Human Ecology, University of California Davis, 2020

• Master of Urban Design (with distinction), University of Michigan Ann Arbor, 2015

• Master of Landscape Architecture (ASLA Merit award for academic excellence), University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2013

Selected Publications

[Book] Outdoor Environments for People: Considering Human Factors in Landscape Design. Patsy Owens, Jayoung Koo, and Yiwei Huang (coming 2021)

[Journal Article] Park, Fish, Salt and Marshes: Participatory Mapping and Design in a Watery Uncommons. Land. Brett Milligan, Alejo Kraus-Polk, and Yiwei Huang. Land, 9(11), 454.

[Journal Article] Responsibilities and Roles of Landscape Architects in the Establishment of Child-Friendly City. Landscape Architecture Frontier. 8(2), 110-121. Yiwei Huang.

[Journal Article] Seeing the forest for more than the trees: aesthetic and contextual malleability of preferences for climate change adaptation strategies.  Ecology and Society, 25(4). Jeffery Jenkins, Brett Milligan, Yiwei Huang

[Journal Article] 'Separate but Equal?' Understanding the Gender Differences in Urban Park Usage and its Implications to Gender Inclusive Design. Yiwei Huang and Claire Napawan (in press).

[Journal Article] Landscape Planning and Design in the Century of the City. Landscape Architecture Journal. Vol. 2014-01, pp 112-119. Jack Ahern, Yiwei Huang

[Journal Article] The Research in Bryant Park on Sustainable Vitality Creation in Urban Parks. Urban Planning International Magazine. Vol. 2014-03, pp 126-130. Baoyan Liu, Min Wang, Chi Gao, and Yiwei Huang.

[Journal Article] Envisioning for sustainable approach in greenway planning. 2013. Landscape Architecture Journal. 2013-06. 18-23