OPEN CALL: Fellowships 2026–27: Master of Landscape Architecture program AT Auburn University

The Master of Landscape Architecture Program at Auburn University is pleased to announce two fellowship opportunities for 2026–27. Student fellows will work directly with faculty on impactful research and outreach initiatives while earning an accredited graduate degree in Landscape Architecture. Located in one of the most ecologically diverse and culturally rich landscapes in the United States, Auburn’s Master of Landscape Architecture program is the only accredited program of its kind in the State of Alabama. Distinguished by three areas of landscape practice—fieldwork, landscape advocacy and design research—the program teaches students to become designers of 21st century landscapes.

2026–2027 Landscape Infrastructure Design Lab (LIDL) Fellowship
Fascinated by the future of America’s coasts? Join the LIDL team as we work on a broad range of coastal infrastructure projects from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Our work is sponsored by funders including the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineering With Nature program, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Effects of Sea Level Rise program and the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Our largest and newest project, Tidelands, is sponsored by Engineering With Nature and conducted in partnership with the Natural Infrastructure Lab at the University of Virginia and the EMLab at the University of Pennsylvania.

Fellows will work directly with LIDL and our partners to advance the design of nature-based infrastructure and often have the opportunity to travel with the LIDL team for site visits and project workshops. Current LIDL Fellow Martin Brice has been working on a shoreline restoration project on Bronson Field, a former Navy Airfield, and the design of a new island off the coast of Georgia which will build critical bird habitat while also supporting shipping and navigation.

2026–2027 Alabama Lab Fellowship
Interested in the rich and messy landscapes of the American South? The Alabama Lab, the design research lab of the Auburn University landscape architecture program, invites applications for the 2026–2027 Alabama Lab Fellowship. Student fellows will work directly with landscape architecture faculty to advance the mission of the lab. The Alabama Lab is committed to design as a way of engaging rich, complex and messy situations in order to imagine and build better futures. Recently, the lab has worked on an urban wild near downtown Montgomery, Alabama, a working conservation farm in the mountain valleys of north Alabama and with coastal communities and infrastructure in Mobile Bay.

Application deadline: January 5, 2026.

Graduate student fellows will receive a tuition waiver and monthly stipend. They will begin the three-year MLA curriculum in fall 2026. A two-year advanced placement track may be available for students who hold a previous design degree (BLA, BArch, BSArch). All applicants must hold an undergraduate degree before fall 2026.

Applicants should submit a statement of intent, resume and portfolio to elknox@auburn.edu. For more information about the MLA program and application instructions, visit our website.

All questions, inquiries and applications should be sent to MLA Program Chair Emily Knox at elknox@auburn.edu.