MLA candidate Dhara Mittal wins LAF Joe Lalli Award
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The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) honored MLA candidate Dhara Mittal with its prestigious Honor Scholarship in Memory of Joe Lalli, FASLA. Dhara's interest in designing human ecosystems in urban areas stem from a long standing interaction with nature. She grew up in two countries, dividing time between India and Tanzania. Growing up within diverse ecologies and communities across continents, she learned to celebrate differences while recognizing common humanity. Her undergraduate studies first sparked her interest in river systems while working on a project on a neglected creek in her hometown of Vadodara, a city established on the banks of the Vishwamitri River in India. At the University of Michigan she has successfully formulated her passions and interests into an interdisciplinary master’s project that aims to propose alternative design mechanisms and policy recommendations for the Vishwamitri River. After graduation, Dhara intends to expand her work to other natural systems oriented projects in India. Her immediate interest is to work on the national river interlinking project. Through her work she intends to bring a paradigm shift in the way river systems are perceived in India.