María Bellalta, FASLA, IFLA AR
Department Head and Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning; Director of Global Engagement
Bio
María is head of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and director of global engagement for the College of Design at North Carolina State University. She also serves as a member of the Campus Design Review Panel for NC State University. Her career is distinguished by the work she has produced over the past 30 years through research, teaching, academic administration, and practice in landscape architecture. Her research is focused on the urbanization of the Global South, its environmental and social impacts, and is informed by international projects and collaborations and her roots in Latin America. She offers a worldview that considers the cultural values of a given place in relation to the geographical landscape of the region as the driving forces behind future models of urbanization.
María serves on the International Federation of Landscape Architects – Americas Region (North, Central, and South America); she is member of IFLA – Americas RAEAP, Red Americana de Educación en Arquitectura del Paisaje / Americas Network of Landscape Architecture Education; and is the American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) delegate to IFLA – Americas.
She has engaged in academic collaborations with Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Colombia; Centro Metropolitano de Arquitectura Sustentable in Mexico City; Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico; Isthmus, Panama; among other academic institutions in Latin America. Her professional experience includes positions with Buró Verde Arquitectura, Martha Schwartz Partners, Sasaki Associates, and Copley Wolff Design Group, where as design director and project manager she has executed a range of urban design, planning, and landscape architecture projects nationally and internationally.
María has served as trustee for the Boston Society of Landscape Architects. She is the former dean and head of the School of Landscape Architecture, Boston Architectural College. She received her Master of Landscape Architecture degree from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, with prior studies in environmental psychology from the University of Notre Dame. María is originally from Chile.