Danika Cooper

Danika Cooper is Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. The core of her research centers around the geopolitics of scarcity, alternative water ontologies, and designs for resiliency in the world’s arid regions. Her work incorporates historiographical research methods, landscape architecture visualization, and theories of urban infrastructure to evaluate and design for environmentally and socially just landscapes. Specifically, Cooper is focused on finding alternatives to prevailing nineteenth-century conceptions that the aridlands should be overturned through technocratic solutions and neoliberal politics. Her work has been published and exhibited across the world, and she has practiced in both the United States and India. Previously, she was the 2015-2016 Designer-in-Residence teaching fellow at the University of Illinois, Department of Landscape Architecture.