Meet our Speakers
Explore this year’s keynote speakers and conference sessions.
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).
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.
Brad McCauley
Brad McCauley, FASLA, PLA, CDT is Partner and 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 16 states and certified as a Construction Document Technologist, he brings both design excellence and technical expertise to his practice.
Central States Sessions
Sessions are announced! Full summaries to follow. Check out our conference schedule for CEU sessions & field session times.
Sessions:
Arboreta: A Living Resource — Cody Azotea, Rebecca Hankins, James Faupel
Beyond the Studio: Sustaining Socially Engaged Work through Academia–Practice Partnerships — Alexandra Mei, Irene Compadre, Matthew Bernstine
Brentwood Bound: The Perfect Storm of Parks, People, and Flood Mitigation — Andrew Franke, Ted Spaid, Eric Gruenenfelder
From Roots to Renewal: Native Landscaping and the Making of Place — Connie Scothorn
MOmentum Bike Park: Designing and Constructing Missouri’s Largest Bike Park — Lance Klein, Paul Bloomberg, Jeremy Jones, Cole Beckham
Navigating the Expectations of Expertise with Professional Ethics — Lee Feaster, Leslie Wren, Veronica Meadows
Reclaiming the Blue: A Kansas City Story of Ecological Decline and Collaborative Renewal — Maria Landoni, Logan Heley, Tony Richardson
Remembering Significance, Reclaiming Landscape: Basin Spring Park Rehabilitation Plan — Ruxin Tao, Sam Dudley
Way Beyond Bigness: The Need for Watershed Architecture — Derek Hoeferlin, Jennifer Colten, Roo Yawitz
When Community Leads: Collective Impact on the MLK Cultural Boulevard — Tim Buescher, Hallie Nolan, Aaron Williams
Digital Echoes: Harvesting the Living Narrative of Landscape Architecture — Bo Zhang
Field Sessions:
Living Waterways: Ecological Restoration, Access, and Active Mobility in Forest Park — Ted Spaid, Russ Volmert
Welcome to the Garden: Behind the Scenes at the Missouri Botanical Garden — Irene Compadre, Charling Chen, Andrew Wyatt
Call for Speakers
The Call for Speakers is now closed. The document is available here for reference.
Thank you to all who submitted!