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Curriculum Vitae
Ben Barsotti Scott, PLA



Education
PhD candidate, Department of Geography. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Master of Landscape Architecture. University of Virginia School of Architecture, Charlottesville, VA.
Bachelor of Arts in Art History, Magna cum Laude with Honors. Knox College, Galesburg, IL.

Research interests
The US military-industrial complex
Militancy and nonviolence in American social movements
American landscape photography after 1945
Landscape remediation at post-industrial and post-nuclear sites

Publications: Peer-reviewed
Forthcoming, 2027. “Citizen Scientist 1 Returns.” LA+: Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture 25.
2025. “Book Review: Lindsey Dillon, Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco.” Critical Planning Journal 28.
2024. “Anti-Assimilationist Landscape: Becoming Illegible as Queer Resistance to State Power.” Journal of Landscape Architecture 19 (1): 20–33. 

Publications: Criticism and reporting
2025. “Lawnfire of the Vanities: Reply to Shore Things.” New York Review of Architecture 45.
2024. “Lonely on the Sand Bar.” New York Review of Architecture 38/39.
2023. “The Water Isn’t Fine.” New York Review of Architecture 37.
2023. “Baby, Why Don’t We Go?” New York Review of Architecture 37.
2023. “Blur Tool.” New York Review of Architecture 36.

Teaching
Fall 2025, Instructor of Record, Geography 208: Maps, Power, and the Digital World, Rutgers University.
AY 2024-25; Spring 2026, Teaching Assistant, Introduction to International and Global Studies, Rutgers University.
Spring 2022, Instructor of Record, AH-379 Contemporary Architectural Theory, Maryland Institute College of Art.
AY 2016–17: Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, Theories of Modern Landscape Architecture, University of Virginia.

Licensure and service
2024–present, Licensed Landscape Architect, New York State.
2024-25, Geography Department Representative to Rutgers AAUP-AFT.
2020–2022, Chair, Mentor Committee, SCAPE Landscape Architecture. New York, NY.

Guest critique
Spring 2026, Final Critic, LAR 332/432, “Design for Art, Ecology and Local History” Studio, Rutgers University.
Spring 2025, Mid-term Critic, LAR 332/432, “Design after Capitalism” Studio, Rutgers University.
Fall 2023, Mid-term Critic, LAR 63100 Advanced Landscape Architecture Studio, City College of New York.
Spring 2023, Final Critic, ARCH 704: “Integrated Contexts & Mediums,” Pratt Institute School of Architecture.
Winter 2022, Final Critic, “Gulf Coast Climate Futures,” Tulane School of Architecture.
Winter 2018, Final Critic, “Queer Space” graduate seminar. Rhode Island School of Design.

Exhibitions and programs
2016. Event organizer and panel moderator: “A Reunion of People’s Blockaders” April 30-May 1, 2026, Ground Zero Center, Poulsbo, WA.
2018. Exhibition curator and designer: “Unrestrooms, An Unfinished Survey of Gender and Public Space” March 2-April 5, 2018, Front/Space, Kansas City, MO.
2018. Panel organizer and facilitator: “Best Practices in Inclusive Restroom Design,” March 31, 2018. Kansas City Center for Inclusion, Kansas City, MO.
2016. Exhibition curator and designer: “Yes, It Can Be Done! US National Park Service Expanding, 1950–1980.” Spring 2016, East Gallery, University of Virginia School of Architecture.

Talks: Conference papers
“Populism, Mass Mediation, and the 1972 People’s Blockade as Protest Form,” American Association of Geographers, San Francisco, CA, March 20, 2026.
“Altering the Landscape a Little Bit: Queer space-making in Collier Schorr’s Blumen,” Annual Graduate History Symposium, University of Toronto, May 11, 2018.

Talks: Invited lectures
“Direct Action Landscape,” Rutgers University Department of Landscape Architecture, October 25, 2023.
“Direct Action Landscape,” Morgan State University School of Architecture and Planning, April 20, 2023.
“Type and Regulatory Type” Invited talk for course AH-250 World Architecture at MICA, October 15, 2021.
“After the Hyperprofessional,” University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee Department of Architecture, March 2021.

Fellowships, workshops, and grants
2026, North Carolina Friends Historical Society, Seth and Mary Edith Hinshaw Fellowship. $2000.
2026, Rutgers University School of Graduate Studies, Research Grant. $1000.
2024, University of Michigan Libraries, William P. Heidrich Research Fellowship. $2000.
2024, Garden Club of America, Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship. $4000.
2024, Times Square Arts, Arts Engagement Fellowship.
Summer 2017, Dumbarton Oaks Graduate Workshop in Garden and Landscape Studies.
Summer–Fall 2015, Ecological Society of America, Earth Stewardship Initiative Fellowship.
Summer 2013, Poplar Forest Architectural Restoration Field School.
2009, Knox College, Hari Ramanan Grant. $1000.
2009, Knox College, Richter Memorial Scholarship. $1225.

Professional experience
2017–present: Independent Curator. New York, NY. Through the two-person curatorial project Bad Little Brother, curates exhibitions and public programs on queer and feminist spatial practices. Manages budget, purchases, and grant proposals. Leads exhibition production.
2024: Research Assistant for Collaborations in Architecture and Sociology by Anita Bakshi and Zaire Dinzey-Flores (Routledge, 2025). Provided research support, editing, and original graphics.
2019–2023: SCAPE Landscape Architecture. Associate, 2022-3; Senior Designer 2019-22. New York, NY. Designed and managed urban public space projects across scales and phases. Facilitated agency approvals for and managed landscape construction at built projects in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
2017–2019: Ken Smith Workshop. Landscape Designer. New York, NY. Contributed design and prepared construction drawings for urban public space projects. Contributed research, exhibition design, and graphics for 2018 exhibition Normcore Landscape.
2015–2016: Research Manager, Benjamin C. Howland Papers, University of Virginia Libraries. Cataloged and documented a major donation of drawings from twentieth-century US National Parks and National Capital Planning Commission projects. Contributed research to a Historic American Landscape Survey entry (HALS-VA-67).
2014–2016: Research Assistant, Arctic Design Group (ADG). Organized 2015 Arctic States symposium and exhibition.
2012–2014: Art Institute of Chicago. Assistant to the Chair of American Art. Chicago, IL. Under Judith A. Barter, provided administrative and research support for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions, grant proposals, and educational programs on American art before 1945.

Awards and honors
2025 (under SCAPE Landscape Architecture) Merit Award in Residential Design for Malt Place Park, ASLA NY.
2024 (under SCAPE Landscape Architecture) Honor Award in General Design for Neal Place Park, Potomac ASLA.
2018 (as Bad Little Brother with Peggy Noland) honorable mention for proposed installation “Simple Made-Up Machines.” Materials and Applications, Los Angeles, CA.
2017 Allison Ingraham Memorial Award. University of Virginia School of Architecture.

Memberships
American Association of Geographers. Member, Media Geography Specialty Group, Historical Geography Group.
The Architecture Lobby. Member, New York Chapter. Founding member of the Landscape Caucus, active 2020-22.
College Art Association.
(Non)Violent Lives and Afterlives Graduate Working Group, Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Photography Network.


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