UNM School of Architecture + Planning Presents Brett Milligan with Distinguished Alumni Honors
September 19, 2024
The School of Architecture + Planning is pleased to announce that UNM Master of Landscape Architecture Alumnus Brett Milligan (MLA ’06) is the recipient of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni in Landscape Architecture Award. Milligan is currently Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Design and Vice Chair of The Department of Human Ecology at the University of California, Davis, where he serves as the director of Metamorphic Landscapes Lab, with a research emphasis in landscape-based prototyping to address climactic and environmental change.
After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Virginia, Milligan studied landscape architecture at UNM where he earned his Master’s degree with academic distinction. After graduating, he worked as a designer and project manager in Portland for Koch Landscape Architecture and GreenWorks Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. He has since served as an educator and thought leader within non-profit and academic settings, including his current role at UC Davis where he has worked as a professor and researcher since 2013.
Among his accomplishments, Milligan co-founded the Dredge Research Collaborative, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to exploring the human alteration and design of sedimentary landscapes.” He has authored several important works, including a book co-written with Emily Schlickman, Design by Fire Resistance, Co-Creation, and Retreat in the Pyrocene, for which he received a Great Places Research Awards Honorable Mention from the Environmental Design Research Association in 2023. He has received numerous honors for Public Sediment for Alameda Creek including The Analysis and Planning Honor Award for the American Society of Landscape Architects 2019 professional awards.
SA+P Chair of Landscape Architecture Katya Crawford recalls Milligan’s many contributions as a graduate student at UNM. “Witnessing Brett Milligan's career unfold as a practitioner, researcher and educator has been amazing, but not surprising. As a student, Brett expanded the traditional boundaries of landscape architecture, and he has been doing that ever since. His work with the Metamorphic Landscapes Lab, the Dredge Research Collaborative, his teaching and publications have all richly contributed to the body of knowledge dedicated to fiercely engaging with complex, rapid environmental change at multiple scales and through novel perspectives. In short, he is extraordinary, and so deserving of this award.
Dean of the School of Architecture + Planning Robert González lauded Milligan’s selection and his impressive professional ascension since graduating from UNM, “Brett Milligan is the first Landscape Architecture alumnus to receive the Distinguished Alumni recognition, and we are impressed with all he has accomplished and contributed to his discipline and to the education of future landscape architects.”
