Cynthia Girling is a Professor of Landscape Architecture in the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of British Columbia, and Chaired that program from 2004 to 2010. After practicing in Vancouver early in her career, she moved to academic practice and has now taught, conducted scholarship and headed landscape architecture programs for over thirty years, initially at the University of Oregon and now at UBC.
Her scholarship has focused on the form-making role of open space in the city and in the environmental contributions of urban open space across several spatial scales — yards, neighbourhoods, and open space systems. She has co-authored two books and numerous reports and articles. With Professor Ronald Kellett, she co-directs the elementsLab, an interdisciplinary research group emphasizing measured visualizations to inform neighborhood scale design that is more energy conserving, lower environmental impact, of better design quality and more livable.
Cynthia Girling received her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon and holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies from the University of Manitoba. She has served on the BCSLA Board of Directors while Chair of Landscape Architecture and served on the Board of Examiners for six years. At the national level, she was a juror for the CSLA awards in 2008, served on the editorial board of Landscapes/Paysages from 2010 to 2021, is a member of the board of the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation serving on two LACF committees, served as a juror for the CSLA College of Fellows in 2021 and 2022, and served on the jury for the 2022 Governor General's Award. Cynthia is also a Fellow of the ASLA and the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture and a former treasurer of the Landscape Architect Registration Board in Oregon.