The University of Georgia has announced a field of four finalists for the position of dean of the College of Environment and Design. Each of the four candidates will visit the Athens campus by November 8 for interviews and a public presentation. Two of the four finalists are women.
Patsy Eubanks Owens is a professor of landscape architecture and environmental design in the department of human ecology at the University of California, Davis. She joined the faculty at the university in 1990. Earlier, she taught at Virginia Tech. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book Outdoor Environments for People: Considering Human Factors in Design (Routledge). Professor Owens is a graduate of the University of Georgia, where she majored in landscape architecture. She holds a master of landscape architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Sonia Hirt is dean and professor at the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at the University of Maryland, College Park. Professor Hirt joined the faculty at the University of Maryland in 2016 after teaching in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech. She is the author of Iron Curtains: Gates, Suburbs and Privatization of Space in the Post-Socialist City (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). Dr. Hirt is a graduate of the University of Architecture and Civil Engineering in Sofia, Bulgaria. She earned a master or urban and regional planning degree and a Ph.D. in urban, technological and environmental planning at the University of Michigan.