People and Organisation

Dr. Attila Tóth is a freelance landscape architect, currently working as assistant professor (PhD) at the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, where he completed his PhD in 2015. He studied landscape architecture and landscape & spatial planning in Slovakia and Austria.

Anna Szilágyi-Nagy is an MSc landscape architect, working at the Town Hall of Törökbálint, Hungary. She is interested in promoting practices that smoothen the dialogue between decision makers and citizens at the local level. She is vice-president of the kultúrAktív Egyesület, a Hungarian NGO that fosters built environment education for children, and coordinates game-based participatory projects for youth in urban development. Her recent focus is on safe cities and design out of crimes strategies and as CPTED expert she runs the project SAFECITY funded by the Hungarian National Crime Prevention Council at the NGO. As PhD student of the University of Tubingen, she writes her research about the transformation of landscape democracy practices through games. She is board member of the LE:NOTRE Institute, and interested in linking landscape education, research and practice on local and international level.

Professor Nilgül Karadeniz studied Landscape Architecture at Ankara University. Since 1998 she has been affiliated to Ankara University as an academic staff and since 2010 as Professor in Landscape Architecture. Her recent research has focused on participatory GIS- Landscape Planning, conservation and management of sensitive ecosystems, landscape biography and the relationship between climate change and urban expansion – transformation. She was a visiting researcher at AGH Science and Technology University (Kraków-Poland), North Carolina University (Raleigh-USA) and Kassel University (Germany). She had been editorial board member of SCI-expanded journals. She is former Vice-President and Executive Committee member of European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS), and is currently board member of the LE:NOTRE Institute.

Meryem Atik is a full time Professor in Landscape Archictecture Department at Akdeniz University in Antalya, Turkey.  She conducted a great number of research project on rural landscapes, landscape toponymies, landscape charaterisation, impacts of recreation activities and the author of book chapters in landscape character assessment and related topics. She had research sholarships at Leibniz Universität Hannover , TU Berlin in Germany and Lincoln University in New Zealand in various times. Her field of speciality is cultural landscapes and rural landscapes in particular. She is currently a board member of the LE:NOTRE Institute.

Elke Mertens is professor of garden architecture and landscape maintenance at the Hochschule Neubrandenburg – University of Applied Sciences. She holds a Dr.-Ing. degree from the Technical University in Berlin (1997). She is co-chair of the German Hochschulkonferenz Landschaft (HKL), general secretary of the Le Notre Institute and had been active in the Le:Notre Thematic Network as well as in ECLAS as member of the executive boards. Elke Mertens has published the Book “Visualizing Landscape Architecture” and has been active as reviewer for different conferences and magazines in the field of landscape.

Maria-Beatrice Andreucci PhD, MBA, M.Sc., M.Sc.is a registered landscape architect and economist who focuses her professional activity, research and teaching, on the application of environmental technological design and environmental economics theories, principles and methods on urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture projects. In both teaching and researching, she levers on an extensive international professional experience in strategic planning and economic valuation, working on complex, integrated business development and corporate finance projects, consulting leading private and public institutions and corporations worldwide.

Adrian Noortman is a landscape architect and senior lecturer and researcher at University of Applied Sciences Van Hall Larenstein in Velp (VHL), the Netherlands. He is involved networks such as ECLAS and a board member of the LE:NOTRE Institute.

At VHL he teaches landscape planning and design and coordinates the specialization Strategic Design of the program of Garden and landscape design. Design and planning of sustainable food systems is one of the important emerging topics that he is involved in, both in education of graduate students and in research projects. In the past four years Adrian Noortman worked as teacher and researcher in several projects of VHL, such as the ‘Sustainable food landscapes in urban regions’.

Prof. Dr. Julia (Nerantzia) Tzortzi (Georgi) is Assoc. Professor of Landscape Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering.

She is Vice-President of the Greek Association of Landscape Architects-PHALA (2003-16) and member of Landscape Institute (UK) and IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects), where she is active in the IFLA WGs: “UIA / IFLA Working Group Indigenous Ecosystem Corridors and Nodes” and “Cultural Landscapes”.She also established the Master of Landscape Architecture at Neapolis University of Pafos Cyprus and she taught in several Universities in Europe and in China (ZUST University).

Julia has served for 15 years as Executive Professional in Forestry Engineer and Landscape Architect at the Ministry of Environment, Urban Planning and Energy – Climate Change of Greece. During her service at the Ministry she served as General Project Manager at the Environmental Awareness Park Organization of Antonis Tritsis, the largest urban park in Greece (120 Ha).

During the years 2000-2004 Julia offered her expertise as General Project Manager and Head of Environmental Department for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. She designed and supervised the construction of significant landscape projects (urban, periurban parks, greenways, venues) of ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games such as the Contemporary Marathon Route, the surrounding environment of Olympic Venue: Whistle House, the landscape design of the surrounding area of Peace and Friendship Stadium, the renovation of Athens National Garden, the redesign of Pedion Areos Park, the landscape preservation of the Historic Garden of Zappeion Megaron, the landscape design for Exarchia square, and the landscape design of Kolonaki square.

From 1997 to 2000 she was Head of the Environmental Department of EGNATIA ODOS S.A. Design/Construction Company which specifically designed and constructed Egnatia Odos, the transnational Road from Adriatic Sea throughout Greece up to the borders with Turkey.

Jeroen de Vries is a dedicated landscape architect with a mission to foster the
professional and academic quality of the discipline. Combines vision and innovation with management and sustainable support of organisations. In groups and projects acting as the driving force: structuring, organising discussion, guiding decision making, supporting his colleagues, and editing and implementing the outcomes. Graduated as a landscape architect of Wageningen University with a specialisation in landscape design and ecology. Worked as a consultant at the DG Groep and a teacher and researcher at VHL University of Applied Science.

Jeroen supported landscape architecture on a national and European level by serving on the executive committee of the Netherlands Association for Landscape Architecture (NVTL; 1998-2003), in the recognition panel of schools for EFLA (1997-2005), as a member of the Executive Committee of ECLAS (1997-2013, president 2004-2009) and the LE:NOTRE Steering Committee (2001-2012). He was a member of the working party of sustainable urban development of the NVTL (1998-2017).

Currently he is on the advisory board of the DG Groep and director of the LE:NOTRE Institute. He is an independent landscape architecture researcher. In September 2017 he was honoured with the ECLAS Life Time Achievement award for excellence in teaching, research and international organisation.

Ellen Fetzer holds a diploma and a doctoral degree in landscape planning from Kassel University, Germany. At Nürtingen-Geislingen University she is primarily coordinating the international masters in landscape architecture (IMLA). Her second focus is on computer supported collaborative learning. Ellen is currently president of ECLAS, the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools.

On that basis, Ellen advises the LE:NOTRE Institute in the following fields:

Strategic project development, primarily on the field of ERASMUS+, development of innovative educational formats such as the LE:NOTRE Institute student competition, workshop formats for the annual landscape forum and development of online seminars at the interface of education for sustainable development and landscape practice.

Roxana Triboi is a Romanian urban planner with experience in urban and landscape planning in Romania and France, and a Ph.D. in Architecture on urban pastoralism.  Her professional experience revolved around the urban-productive-nature paradigm, currently in charge of Territorial Food Project for the Urban Agency of Clermont-Ferrand and Sustainable Food Planning Research for the LE:NOTRE Institute. Amongst other things she held and contributed to a series of conferences and seminars on food planning and urban pastoralism like the international conference “Food Urbanism” in Tartu (2018), Decolonizing food systems and food research (2017) and AESOP sustainable food planning conference (2015).

Deni Ruggeri is an Associate Professor in the Institute for Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norway. His research focuses on the social dimensions of landscape and urban design, and the promotion and evaluation of bottom-up, participatory co-creation, and redevelopment processes. His work investigates the landscapes’ influence on people’s place identity and attachment, digital and analog methods, and tools for participatory co-creation, and the design of landscapes that support physical and mental well-being, ecological health, economic viability, identity, delight, and biophilia. He is the author of 25 publications and co-editor of “Defining Landscape Democracy. A Path to Spatial Justice” (Glos, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) Deni Ruggeri’s education includes a Ph.D. in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and graduate degrees in both Landscape Architecture and City Planning from Cornell University. He has practiced landscape architecture in California and Colorado and has international experience in leading community design and visioning processes and workshops. Before joining NMBU, Deni has taught in the USA at the University of Oregon and Cornell University. Deni Ruggeri has lectured at many institutions around the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a visiting instructor at UC Davis and the University of California, Berkeley.