Rate My Professor Margaret Grose

Associate Professor Margaret Grose serves as Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture at the Melbourne School of Design within the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, a position she has held since 2007. Her academic journey began with training as a violinist, followed by a first-class degree in agricultural science specializing in soils and plant nutrition from the University of Western Australia. She earned a PhD in the ecophysiology of Australian plants, particularly banksias, also from the University of Western Australia. Subsequently, she conducted postdoctoral research in microbial ecology at Oxford University and served as a Research Fellow in mathematical ecology at the University of Cambridge for several years. Grose then completed a first-class degree in landscape architecture at the University of Western Australia, worked in an environmental practice, and collaborated with Richard Weller in studio and research at the same institution before joining the University of Melbourne.

Grose's research specializes in integrating ecological science with landscape architecture, focusing on constructed ecologies, conservation, and environmental literacy for design education. She teaches ecological design and coordinates subjects such as Constructed Ecologies in the Master of Landscape Architecture program. Her influential book, Constructed Ecologies: Critical Reflections on Ecology with Design, was published by Routledge in 2017. Key publications also include 'Gaps and futures in working between ecology and design for constructed ecologies' in Landscape and Urban Planning (2014), 'Mixing ecological science into landscape architecture' in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (2019), and contributions to studies on Persian gardens, street lighting effects on health, and energy-saving through dimming streetlights. She has secured grants including the University of Melbourne Research Collaboration Grant in 2010 for understanding barriers to streetlight dimming and the Sargent Award for Visiting Scholars in 2018 from the Arnold Arboretum. Grose's work fosters interdisciplinary dialogue between ecology and design, enhancing practices in urban biodiversity, public open spaces, and sustainable landscape planning.