The University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design has announced the appointment of Associate Professor, Fadi Masoud to the role of program director, Master of Landscape Architecture(MLA), effective July 1, 2026.
Masoud succeeds Elise Shelley, who served as MLA program director since 2022.
“My primary goal is to support our students in becoming thoughtful, creative, and confident leaders,” says Masoud. “Whether they pursue careers in private practice, government, community organizations, academia, or emerging fields that do not yet exist, I want our graduates to feel empowered to make meaningful contributions to society and their environment.”
Masoud says he looks forward to strengthening the ties between landscape architecture, urban design and forestry programs at Daniels and will continue to strengthen the program’s international profile while expanding opportunities to engage with alumni, practitioners, researchers, communities and projects beyond the university. He says this includes fostering new partnerships, creating opportunities for experiential learning and research, while ensuring the curriculum continues to evolve alongside the challenges and opportunities shaping the profession.
“If you want to study landscape architecture in a place where design excellence, research, critical inquiry and real-world impact come together, Daniels offers an unparalleled environment. Here, landscape architecture is understood not as a specialized niche, but as a powerful and expansive discipline capable of shaping the world.”
Fadi Masoud
Masoud’s design and research work engages the landscape as an operational force in shaping the built environment; examining how environmental systems, policy, sociocultural considerations and design interact to support urban design, and in particular urban climate adaptation and resilience. Masoud has a strong record of coordinating studio pedagogy and contributes widely to international conferences, publications, competitions and exhibitions that reflect an imaginative commitment to addressing the climate emergency.
Prior to his appointment at the University of Toronto, Masoud held teaching and research positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). More recently he has held visiting appointments at the University of Miami and KU Leuven in Belgium.
Maoud is the director of the Centre for Landscape Research (CLR). Since becoming director in 2020, he has emphasized interdisciplinary design, education and research that advance climate resilience through novel urban codes, geospatial decision-making tools and the design of parks as a form of climate action. He is a principal investigator and U of T lead on a multi-million-dollar, multi-year research partnership grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The project involves collaboration between 14 Canadian universities and various municipal, professional and citizen partners to develop actions aimed at addressing and challenging existing definitions of quality in the built environment.
Masoud is the editor of Terra-Sorta-Firma: Reclaiming the Littoral Gradient (Actar, 2020), a book that delves into the risks and realities of constructing on reclaimed coastal land. He has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles that emphasize the enduring connections between landscape architecture and resilient design, as well as the potential of using landscape architecture to reshape land use zoning as a means of climate adaptation. He is the co-author of a forthcoming book, Parks in Action (Leuven University Press), which investigates the role parks will play in shaping Toronto’s future. Masoud has received numerous awards, including the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects (OALA) Research and Innovation Award, the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) Teaching Excellence Award, the Fulbright Fellowship, the Heather M. Reisman Gold Medal in Design, the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Certificate of Honor, Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Jacob Weidenmann Prize. He was a National Olmsted Scholar Finalist and received the Charles E. Beveridge Fellowship from the Olmsted Friends of Fairsted.
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