IFLA SPECIAL ENVOYS
IFLA Special Envoys are senior landscape architecture professionals who hold the important task of representing the IFLA World Council on the basis of a temporary mandate at specific international organisations. Learn more about our current Special Envoys below.
Gayle-Souter Brown
IFLA Special Envoy to International Society for Urban Health (ISUH)
Connecting research, policy and practice, Dr Gayle Souter-Brown is a holistic systems thinker. A Taylor Francis-named UN Sustainable Development Goal Thought Leader, her multidisciplinary approach bridges health, ecology, and landscape architecture. This novel, innovative methodology embraces goals #3 Good health and wellbeing, #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, #13 Climate Action and #15 Life on Land.
Her research and practice explore human-nature interaction as it impacts stress and hence incidence of non-communicable disease. Effects of the qualities of the built and natural environment on physical activity, diet, workplace wellbeing and the wider social and environmental determinants of health feature across her work. Unafraid to question the status quo, she uses quantitative methods to inform her work, balanced by the qualitative 'how things feel'.
Interested in health promotion, mental health and sustainable development, Dr Souter-Brown integrates innate wisdom, indigenous knowledge, and modern-day mixed methods research. Working remotely and in-person, her award-winning global salutogenic design practice references theories of place, attachment, stress reduction, attention restoration and biophilia. Author of the international text Landscape and Urban Design for Health and Wellbeing, she researches, writes, is an invited speaker, advises and teaches internationally. Gayle is based between London, England, and her farm in rural Canterbury, New Zealand.
Colleen Mercer-Clarke
IFLA Sepcial Envoy to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Dr. Mercer Clarke is an interdisciplinary scientist specializing in advancing resilience to a changing climate. Colleen’s work now focusses on the delivery of useful science on climate change and adaptation to communities, business and governments. Since 2009, she has been active with national and international community-university alliances focussed on adaptation in coastal communities at threat from sea level rise, severe weather and a changing climate. In 2012 she was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on coastal assessment at the Climate Change Directorate of Natural Resources Canada, and also served as one of the primary authors for the 2016 science-based assessment of adaptation along Canada’s marine coasts.
Colleen also has over 35 years’ experience in the consulting sector in Eastern and Atlantic Canada and internationally. Trained as an aquatic/marine ecologist and landscape architect, her early career focused on the sustainable development of resources and communities through stewardship and conservation of natural and cultural resources. Her portfolio of projects ranged in scale from international and national coastal management initiatives, environmental audit and impact assessment, through watershed, regional and municipal planning initiatives, detailed site design and environmental management. In her early career she contributed to the environmental assessment of an array of energy projects including exploration and development of offshore oil and gas (NL), and coal and hydroelectric generation (NS, NB and NL). Colleen played lead technical and management roles in the assessment, planning and rehabilitation of contaminated lands, including one of Canada’s most contaminated sites. the Sydney Tar Ponds. With a keen interest in cultural landscapes, Colleen has undertaken a range of projects on locally and nationally important historic sites, including the restoration of the Halifax Public Gardens from damage created by Hurricane Juan. Her portfolio also includes initiatives with First Nations, including working on the Innu community school at Natuashish Labrador.
A past-president of the CSLA (2003-2004), Colleen has served as President of the Atlantic Association of Landscape Architects, as well as on a range of Boards, Executives and local and national Advisory Committees related to coastal and oceans management and to broader conservation goals. In 2009, in recognition of her service to the profession and to the environment, she was elected to the College of Fellows of the CSLA.
Recently she served tthe Profession as Chair of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architect’s Committee on Climate Adaptation, as well as Chair of the International Federation of Landscape Architect’s Working Group on Climate Change before becoming Chair of IFLAs Professional Practice and Committee until 2021.
Kathryn Moore
IFLA Special Envoy to UN-HABITAT Professional Forum (HPF)
Moore, Director of the WMNP Lab, BCU has published extensively on design quality, theory, education and practice. Her book Overlooking the Visual: Demystifying the Art of Design (2010) redefines theories of perception, and sets a new way of looking at landscape, putting it at the heart of the built and natural environment. This work enables a more democratic way of teaching design, equipping student with the confidence and skill to become designers. The intersection of her research and consultancy has resulted in the radical West Midlands National Park (WMNP) based on a holistic landscape led approach to development and change.
Examining the implications of this new approach beyond the academy, she has developed unrivalled expertise in recognising the importance of good design in infrastructure. Her approach, applauded in the 2020 UK Government Review of Landscapes, is setting a new cultural agenda for the role of landscape as a strategic mechanism for sustainable city region transformation. Reimagining the region from a spatial landscape perspective is driving inclusive social, economic and environmental change. The WMNP is attracting considerable support nationally and from UN Agencies, NGO's and institutions, is endorsed by the West Midlands Combined Authority, Birmingham City Council and other regional authorities and is of great interest to partners in India, Europe and South America.
It underpins the West Midlands Combined Authority’s current sustainability agenda and is directing the long-term social and economic regeneration in the Black Country. Instrumental in setting the course for the Black Country being awarded UNESCO Geopark status, it has informed the development of international declarations, resolutions and reports including the UN Habitat Professional Forum Road to Recovery (adopted in by the UN in April 2022). It resulted in the African Landscape Network adopting a Landscape Charter for the first time. Its Impact Case Study was judged in the 2021/22 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) as 3-4* (world leading and internationally significant).
Immediate Past President of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA), she is a founding partner of the World Design Summit, the 2014 Arnold Weddle Visiting Chair, University of Sheffield and the 2008 Thomas Jefferson Visiting Chair, University Virginia, Charlottesville. A member of the UK’s Independent Design Review Panel for HS2, she was recognised in 2019 by the UK Landscape Institute as one of the ‘most inspiring women landscape architects’ since its inception in 1929. She is a member of the Natural England Landscape Advisory Panel. Read more here.
Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa, FASLA, LEED AP
IFLA Special Envoy to UN Global Compact
Vice President for Landscape Urbanism and Resilience
The Collaborative
Ignacio F. Bunster-Ossa is an internationally recognized landscape architect with long-standing experience in the design of sustainable urban places. A recipient of numerous awards, Ignacio’s work is noted for the design integration of green infrastructure, community engagement and public art. Among noted works is the Master Plan for the Parklands of Floyd’s Fork, in Louisville, KY; the Georgetown Waterfront Park in Washington, D.C.; the SteelStacks Arts and Cultural Campus and Hoover-Mason Trestle in Bethlehem, PA; and the Trinity River Corridor Project in Dallas, TX. Internationally, Ignacio led the master plan for Serena del Mar, a ten-thousand people new community in Cartagena, Colombia; and the Open Space Plan for the Isthmus of Panama, as part of an Interamerican Development Bank funded effort to comprehensively plan the metro areas of Panamá City and Colón. Ignacio is co-author of Green Infrastructure: a Landscape Approach, and author of Reconsidering Ian McHarg: the Future of Urban Ecology, published by Planners Press. He is also author Of Limbs, Leaves, and Hope: A Portrait of Philadelphia’s Urban Forest in Times of a Pandemic, and ALFIE: Earth’s Last Hope, an eco-scifi novel. Ignacio is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and past member of its Climate Change Committee; Steering Committee member of PHEAL (Planning for Health Equity, Advocacy and Leadership); Advisory Board Member of the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology at the University of Pennsylvania; and member of the Leaders Council of the College of Design at the North Carolina State University. Ignacio holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami (FL), a Master of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Loeb Fellowship in Environmental Studies from Harvard University, where he studied ecological design ethics.
Carlos Jankilevich
IFLA Special Envoy to Food and Agriculture Organisations of the United Nations
Jane Welsh
IFLA Special Envoy to AIPH
Jane Welsh is passionate about making big changes to bring nature into the urban environment. Her education and experience as a landscape architect have been the foundation for her work in developing new innovative solutions to address environmental, sustainability, resilience and biodiversity issues and change the way that Toronto, Canada's largest city, is built. This work has included the award winning and internationally recognized Toronto Green Standard and Green Roof Bylaw; the Bird Friendly Guidelines; the biodiversity booklet series and the Enduring Wilderness: Toronto Natural Parklands book. She also led development of the first Ravine Protection Bylaw for the amalgamated city, and the first Ravine Strategy and the first Biodiversity Strategy.
She previously developed Waterfront Plans for Metro Toronto, City of Mississauga and Halton Region Conservation Authority and worked as a landscape architect in the private sector and has always made time to mentor staff and students.
In her volunteer work, Jane is the current co-chair of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architect (CSLA) Committee on Climate Adaptation and served as President of the Ontario Society of Landscape Architects (OALA) from 2018 to 2021.
Jane holds a Bachelor of landscape Architecture form the University of Guelph and a Master of Science in Planning from the University of Toronto.
In 2018, in recognition of her work in a public agency and direct service to the Society, Jane was elected the College of Fellows of the CSLA.
Kathryn Moore and Marina Cervera
IFLA Special Envoys to the Circular Cities Network
Ebru Özer
IFLA Special Envoys to CELA
Ebru Özer, ASLA, is an associate professor at Florida International University and a co-founding principal of LandscapeDE. She has over 20 years of experience in design practice and 15 years in academia. She earned an MLA from Louisiana State University, a BArch from Dokuz Eylül University, and a diploma in Physics from Ege University. She is also currently a Ph.D. candidate in civil engineering, completing her dissertation on climate-conscious stormwater infrastructure design.
Özer devotes majority of her time to educating the next generation of landscape architects. Her teaching efforts have been recognized with many awards and honors, including the FIU Faculty Senate Teaching Medal in 2015 and the FIU University Top Scholar Award in 2020.
Ozer is a board member and registered ACE mentor at ACE Miami where she helps with career development and recruitment by sharing her passion for landscape architecture through weekly teachings at local high schools. She has been part of the ASLA Florida’s executive committee for over a decade and is currently chairing its ACE Legacy Project.