Josh Kover named finalist for the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) 2026 Olmsted Scholars Program

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Josh Kover was named a finalist for the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) 2026 Olmsted Scholars Program representing Rutgers University. Josh wants to help people help their own communities to tackle issues related to climate change because he believes that the scale that makes change happen is community-by-community.

View of forest with tall trees in background and smaller vegetation in foreground.
Josh taking long arm selfie with rocky slope to valley with snow capped mountain in background.
Various height woody plants in rows with dirt path between rows.
Josh in suit in front of people, LAF logo on dark wall in background.

Josh’s thesis addresses urban forestry and the importance of community stewardship. While earning his MLA, Josh designed and planted a tiny forest (3,000 trees) at Rutgers. He used a portion of his LAF award to visit the Alnarp Landscape Laboratory in Sweden–an interdisciplinary project that bridges landscape architecture, forestry, and ecology where theories of urban vegetation design are tested directly in the environment. This visit produced a section of his thesis, Leveraging Attention Through ‘Magic’, which contends that “design is just one way we can leverage ‘magic’…[because] magic exists in the surreal, the exaggerated, and abstract versions of the way we sense.” (Kover, 2026)