Meet our Speakers

The 2026 Conference theme is Living Narratives, celebrating the stories we tell through design: stories that inspire, educate, and connect. Living Narratives explores how culture and ecology shape landscapes that are meaningful, resilient, and rooted in community. “Living” signifies the past, present, and future contexts of the places we design, while “Narratives” refers to the storytelling power those places hold.

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Daniel Wildcat

Daniel Wildcat, Ph.D., is a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, and an accomplished scholar who writes on Indigenous knowledge, technology, environment, and education. He is also director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center, which he founded with colleagues from the Center for Hazardous Substance Research at Kansas State University. Wildcat helped design a four-part video series entitled All Things Are Connected: The Circle of Life (1997), which dealt with the land, air, water, biological, and policy issues facing Native nations. A Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, Wildcat recently formed the American Indian and Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, a tribal-college-centered network of individuals and organizations working on climate change issues. In 2008, he helped organize the Planning for Seven Generations climate change conference sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He is the author, most recently, of Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge (2009).

6:00-7:00 PM Wednesday

Power, Place, and Personality: A Lens for Healing Relationships

Dr. Daniel Wildcat
1.0 LA CES Non-HSW

Description: This presentation will present Vine Deloria, Jr's. principle of American Indian Metaphysics - power and place equals personality as a worldview lens through which our relationships to the land and water literally are the grounds for reimagining a world where humankind is resituated in a healing world.
Learning Objectives:
1) Introduce the audience to the foundation of Indigenous cultures and identity;
2) Explore a non-Anthropocentric worldview that opens the doors to intentional exploration of our deep relationality in the world we did not create;
3) Illustrating landscaping is more than a human activity and more an act of co-creation with the land, air, and water, and the live residing therein; and
Wildcat's presentation will suggest if guided by a deeply relational and non-anthropocentric worldview, landscape architecture can play a leading role in healing a deeply destructive relationship modern humankind has developed with environments and ecosystem communities in which we humans are but one small, albeit, powerful member.

Charles Birnbaum

Charles A. Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, is the president, CEO, and founder of The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF). Prior to creating TCLF, Birnbaum spent fifteen years as the coordinator of the National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative (HLI) and a decade in private practice in New York City, with a focus on landscape preservation and urban design. He is the recipient of a Harvard Loeb Fellowship (1997-98), the Rome Prize (2004) and from ASLA, the Alfred B. LaGasse Medal (2008), President’s Medal (2009) and the ASLA Medal, the Society's highest honor (2017). He founded The Cultural Landscape Foundation in 1998 which is the home to the biennial Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Prize in Landscape Architecture which is endowed in perpetuity and includes a $100,000 award for the laureate. He currently serves as a Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

8:00-9:00 AM Thursday

Expanding Our Lens: Why Not Cultural Systems

Charles Birnbaum
1.0 LA CES HSW

This keynote explores how cultural landscapes shape public memory and influence planning, design, and stewardship decisions in the public realm. It examines how landscape architects can identify, interpret, and manage cultural landscape resources while responding to evolving social values and historical narratives. The presentation highlights strategies for balancing preservation, change, and community engagement when designing and managing culturally significant landscapes.

Brad McCauley

Brad McCauley, FASLA, PLA, CDT is a Partner and the Managing Principal at Site Design Group, where he leads the firm’s vision and delivery of award-winning public spaces nationwide. Recognized for turning design into built reality and fostering inclusive, collaborative teams, Brad also serves as President of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and has held leadership roles as Vice President of Membership, Trustee, and Illinois Chapter President. Licensed in more than 18 states and certified as a Construction Document Technologist, he brings both design excellence and technical expertise to his practice.

9:40-10:40 AM Friday

Design Your Narrative: Taking Ownership of the Story You Practice, Lead, and Leave Behind

Brad McCauley
1.0 LA CES - Pending

Every landscape we design tells a story. So does every career.
In a profession rooted in shaping living systems, we rarely apply that same intentionality to our own paths. Too often, careers unfold reactively, guided by opportunity, circumstance, or inertia rather than purpose.
This keynote invites attendees to rethink their careers as living narratives, dynamic and evolving stories that can be authored with clarity and intention. Drawing from personal experience, firm leadership, and the broader work of ASLA, the talk connects the phases of design, including visioning, planning, iteration, and stewardship, to the arc of a meaningful career.
Importantly, the session also highlights how individual career decisions directly influence the health, safety, and welfare of the public. From early design choices to leadership and project delivery, landscape architects play a critical role in shaping environments that are safe, equitable, and resilient.
The message is simple but urgent. The most important narrative you will ever design may be your own.