School of Landscape Architecture & Planning welcomes new Director, Associate Director, and faculty
School of Landscape Architecture and Planning
August 17, 2022
University of Florida’s School of Landscape Architecture and Planning (SLA&P) is excited to welcome four new affiliates:
– Dr. Jules Bruck, SLA&P Director of SLA&P and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture
– Dr. Lingqian (Ivy) Hu, Associate Director of SLA&P and Chair of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (URP)
– Dr. Shenhao Wang, Assistant Professor (AI in Urban Computing and Analytics), Department of Urban and Regional Planning
– Dr. Jiayang Li, Assistant Professor (FIBER), Department of Landscape Architecture
Dr. Jules Bruck
Director, SLA&P;
Department Chair, Landscape Architecture
Dr. Jules Bruck received her PhD from Texas A&M University and comes to SLA&P from the University of Delaware where she was a professor and founding director of its Landscape Architecture Program. She is a co-founder of the Coastal Resilience Design Studio (CRDS), and co-director of the Gerard J. Mangone Climate Science and Policy Hub.
With a background in coastal resilience, Dr. Bruck sees an opportunity for both landscape architects and planners join diverse interdisciplinary project teams to translate computational data and information generated by predictive models to create visuals for community stakeholders that generates buy in and provides a catalyst for future implementation.
Dr. Bruck is excited about the opportunities provided by joining UF. She enjoyed learning about the university’s desire for preeminence that was shared with her during the interview process. This competitive atmosphere fits with Dr. Bruck’s personality and she believes SLA&P is well positioned to lead the development of new knowledge at the national and international level.
As a new resident of Gainesville, Florida, Dr. Bruck is intrigued by the Floridan Aquifer and hopes to visit and understand how the aquifer is integrated into our lives. She enjoys visiting natural landmarks and has spent some time at the Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park. In addition to spending time in nature, Dr. Bruck enjoys cooking and baking, “mountain” biking, and yoga in her spare time but will be looking for opportunities to visit with her family who is still in Delaware.
Dr. Lingqian (Ivy) Hu
Associate Director, SLA&P;
Department Chair, Urban and Regional Planning
Dr. Linkgqin (Ivy) Hu received her PhD in Policy, Planning, & Development in 2010 from the University of Southern California. Dr. Hu comes to the UF from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she served as the Chair of the Urban Planning Department (DUP). She also served as the Executive for Academic Affairs and Research for the School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP) while at UW-Milwaukee.
Dr. Hu also has professional experience as a regional planner with the Southern California Association of Governments and as an Urban Planner for the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design. Her research interests center around the intersection of land use and transportation with a focus on equity; she has published over 50 articles, books, book chapters, and technical reports, presented over 50 conference presentations, and received more than $1 million in research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other funders.
Dr. Hu jumped at the chance to join UF after watching the department’s initiatives in recent years and hopes to build on the existing strengths of the department, explore new areas for growth, and foster a world-class teaching and research environment. “I am excited to join a department with such forward-thinking and impactful initiatives that are already in place: AI, resilience, and interdisciplinary-research.”
In her spare time, Dr. Hu enjoys traveling and finding out what drives a place’s unique shape, economic activities, diverse streetscapes, and its population’s relationship with the built environment. UF’s campus reminds Dr. Hu of her seven years at the University of Southern California, and she is excited to see it busy with students when the fall semester begins.
Dr. Shenhao Wang
Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Dr. Shenhao Wang will join us in the Fall from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an Assistant Professor (AI in Urban Computing and Analytics) in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. He completes the College of Design Construction and Planning’s set of 4 new AI faculty.
Dr. Wang is currently designing socially-aware urban computing to incorporate unconventional data structures, seeking to generalize computational algorithms for urban studies. He completed his interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Computer and Urban Science at MIT in 2020, holds a bachelor’s in Economics from Peking University, a bachelor’s in architecture and law from Tsinghua University, and a Master of Science in Transportation and Master of City Planning from MIT.
Dr. Jiayang Li
Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture
Dr. Jiayang Li, who receently completed her PhD at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, has joined SLA&P as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture. She will be part of the core faculty of FIBER (Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience).
Dr. Li’s research focuses on the challenge of creating landscape changes that make communities more resilient in the face of climate change and other social and environmental stressors. In addition to her Ph.D, Dr. Li holds a master’s of Landscape Architecture from University of Michigan and a bachelor’s of Engineering in Landscape Architecture from Tongji University in Shanghai.