Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grants
ASLA-NY Announces the Recipients of the 2026 ASLA-NY Grants
ASLA-NY is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 ASLA-NY Grants for the ASLA National Conference. This year, the National Conference Grant provides a total of $2,500 to two grant winners. The grant winner receives $1,500, and the runner-up receives $1,000, toward the cost of attending the annual ASLA Conference on Landscape Architecture in Los Angeles. There will be no recipient in LARE support category this year.
The ASLA-NY Grants are open to landscape architecture professionals who live or work within the ASLA-NY chapter boundary and who promote and advance the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our profession and the communities it serves. Selection decisions are made without regard to race or ethnicity, and grants are available to professionals at all career stages. Applicants who identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a Person of Color are strongly encouraged to apply.
Abby Schafer | 2026 ASLA National Conference Grant Recipient
Abby Schafer is a Project Landscape Architect at Central Park Conservancy, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) coordinator, and an advocate for equity within the profession of Landscape Architecture. Abby believes it is our responsibility as landscape architecture professionals to create an accessible and equitable field. She is striving to amplify voices, foster community, and advance equity within the profession through two pathways: utilizing ASLA’s Career Discovery materials to introduce NYC public school students to the profession of Landscape Architecture and volunteering with WxLA. Abby’s efforts towards introducing students to the profession include speaking on career day panels, leading a workshop for public school educators at the Midwinter Climate Institute at Columbia’s Teachers College, and mentoring middle school STEM students.
Marina Stern | 2026 ASLA National Conference Grant Recipient (Runner-Up)
Marina Stern is a multimedia artist, designer, and advocate for collaborative community planning. As a Resiliency Planner with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, she has worked to enhance awareness and understanding of the city's water infrastructure and climate risks as part of the Cloudburst Program. Marina’s experience in education, landscape design, public engagement, and ecological research has shaped her artistic and scientific lens which she uses to support implementation of equitable stormwater flood resilience strategies. She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
2025 Grant Winners
ASLA National Conference Grant Recipient
Ximena Diaz Velasco
Ximena Diaz Velasco is a model maker, community organizer, and recent graduate of the Master of Landscape Architecture program at the City College of New York. Before pursuing her master's degree, Ximena’s undergraduate studies in international development laid the foundation for her commitment to social systemic change. She spent several years working with NGOs and government agencies, focusing on projects that reduce barriers to public spaces such as libraries and national parks for under-resourced communities. Ximena aims to grow as a landscape architect focused on designing public spaces that establish regenerative, localized water cycles and engage communities to strengthen people’s healing connections to green spaces and water.
Statement:
Attending the 2025 ASLA National Conference in New Orleans was incredibly impactful to me on a professional and personal scale. Sometimes I forget why I came to landscape architecture in the first place and this conference definitely grounded me in my own passions while providing new points of view, ideas, and realized projects. I was able to meet other landscape designers from around the country that I would have never met otherwise who also wanted to do thoughtful work with community co-creation, Indigenous voices, and multi-species spaces. Projects and convenings centering indigenous communities to increase resiliency made me particularly excited as to what is to come in our profession (huge shout out to the ASLA Indigenous Collective). As we look to a future where climate change increasingly endangers communities’ welfare, gatherings like ASLA’s National Conference become even more vital as a space for knowledge sharing, community building, and working together with an ever changing landscape. I am forever grateful to ASLA-NY for having been given the opportunity to attend and learn so much!
LARE Grant Recipient
Nicole Cheng
Nicole Cheng is an interdisciplinary artist and designer committed to building the infrastructures for queer futures she wants to experience within her lifetime. As a Public Realm Planner with the NYC Department of Transportation, she pushes for equitable changes to our streets that make them accessible and enjoyable to all New Yorkers. Once licensed, she hopes to open more accessible pathways for others to join the field of landscape architecture. She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.
Statement:
Receiving the 2025 LARE Grant has been extremely helpful in not only directly catalyzing my professional development through increased resources for taking the LARE, but also through the relationships I’ve developed and volunteer opportunities through being welcomed into the ASLA-NY DEI family. Since I do not receive professional development funding as a city employee, the grant has been pivotal to kickstarting my licensure journey which would have taken much longer to save for otherwise, as well as provided me with access to free study resources. I am extremely thankful to ASLA-NY for their generosity that has enriched my professional life beyond my expectations.