Wonmin Sohn, who joined the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) as an assistant professor of landscape architecture this fall, says there’s one big thing, in particular, that inspired her to join the school.

“In the U.S., a master of landscape architecture (MLA) degree is often paired with a degree in urban or rural planning, but what really attracted me to SEAS was that the MLA degree was joined with the master of science degree, allowing for deeper interdisciplinary pursuit,” Sohn says. 

Sohn, whose research focuses on climate adaptation, flooding and nature-based solutions, previously spent six years teaching at Michigan State University (MSU), where she served as the program director of the Master of Environmental Design Program. She describes her work as involving both structural and non-structural measures to mitigate flood impacts, and says she has recently expanded to exploring compound hazards, which are multiple low-probability high-impact hazards that occur simultaneously or in close succession. 

“Understanding compound hazards will allow me to gain a better understanding of the externalities of environmental impacts, such as floods interacting with additional hazards such as a heat wave or a pandemic,” says Sohn. 

Sohn is currently developing new research ideas with colleagues from both U-M and MSU. One of these ideas is on the linkages between climate and health, particularly on developing decision-support machine learning models to predict inequitable disruptions in the health-climate relationship under extreme compound weather events.

She emphasizes that the accelerating pace of extreme events demands a new kind of landscape thinking, stating that landscapes are increasingly behaving in ways that differ from what designers expect. 

“Our true understanding of the land should be based on hands-on engagement, and not just the readings and modeling itself,” she says. “Landscape architecture is in a unique position to link practice and theory together, transforming scientific insight into real-world adaptation,” Sohn says. 

Starting in Winter 2026, Sohn will teach the Site Engineering course and the Ecological Site Design Studio for first-year MLA students. She explains that since she’ll be teaching the same cohort for these classes, she is envisioning a more integrated, mixed-model approach that weaves engineering principles with ecological design thinking.

“The engineering course itself is primarily calculation-based, but it can be a powerful thinking tool for design. In the design studio, that technical grounding will fuel their understanding of the site functions and operations, and at the same time, open up space to weave their creativity into the work. I don’t want students to think of these two separately, but look at their interconnections.”

Sohn says she looks forward to connecting with her new colleagues and students at SEAS. She hopes to be both a mentor and a supportive companion on their journey, intending to help them build strong intellectual foundations while growing into independent, mature professionals prepared to shape the future of the field.