Professor Ann Komara is the Associate Dean for the College of Architecture and Planning at CU Denver. Professor Komara holds a BA in Classical Studies (Penn State) and a master's in Landscape Architecture and Architectural History (University of Virginia). She chaired the Department of Landscape Architecture (2009-19). Her teaching and research focus on landscape architecture history and theory and design. Her research on urban landscapes of Second Empire Paris has been supported by the Graham Foundation, Camargo Foundation, and Dumbarton Oaks (2019-20 Fellow in Garden & Landscape Studies). She was a Fulbright Teaching and Research Fellow in Finland in 2008 and has led numerous study abroad programs in Finland and France. Her publications include the award-winning Lawrence Halprin’s Skyline Park (2012), and Civilian Conservation Corps ANF-1, which won a national HALS Documentation Award. Both projects reflect the high caliber of her collaborative work with CAP students in landscape studies and documentation. In the fall of 2020, Professor Komara taught the MLA Immersive Semester with a focus on “Water in the West” during which students explored the many issues surrounding water in our semi-arid climate. They studied the causes and effects of systemic inequality in the distribution and use of water and developed design approaches to projects that were grounded in understanding cultural and historic patterns and practices.
Landscape architecture design, history and theory, Urban studies: Second Empire Paris, Cultural landscapes (designed and vernacular), Water in thesemi-arid west including inequity in use and distribution, and cultural patterns in its systems and relationship with plants and design, Women in design.