UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Landscape architecture student and Schreyer Honors College Scholar Anne Lai, daughter of Winifred Tang and Eden Lai, of Hong Kong, is the College of Arts and Architecture’s summer 2023 student marshal. A dean’s list student and member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, she will graduate with a bachelor of landscape architecture degree at Penn State’s commencement ceremonies on Aug. 12.
Lai grew up in Toronto, Canada, and attended York Mills Collegiate Institute. At Penn State, she was involved in several faculty-led research projects, including the Williamsburg Lower Trail Study with landscape architecture faculty member Alec Spangler; and a study titled “Human Health in the Chesapeake Bay,” which consolidated biophysical datasets for GIS processing, with landscape architecture faculty member Stephen Mainzer. She also worked with labor and employment relations faculty member Tom Hogan, scholar-in-residence at the Center for the Performing Arts, on a study titled “Racial Equity, Social Justice, and the Arts,” for which she developed the Virtual Transformational Leadership Development Experience and assisted with a five-month research study on the role of the arts and AI (artificial intelligence) in engaged scholarship.
Lai’s honors include the American Society of Landscape Architects/Pennsylvania-Delaware Chapter Honor Award and several Penn State awards, including the Excellence in Planting Design, Materials, and Professional Practice Award, College of Arts and Architecture Alumni Society and Valley Family scholarships, Brian Orland Award for Excellence in Geospatial Analysis and Design, and Excellence in the Study of Landscape Architecture Award.
In addition to her research and awards, Lai was active in sustainability efforts with the University Park Undergraduate Association, conducted research at Penn State’s Sustainability Institute, and orchestrated a campus-wide survey on pro-environmental behaviors.
During summer 2021 and 2022, she interned at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc. After graduation, she will join the firm’s Boston office full-time.
Lai said her experiences at Penn State post-pandemic led her to embrace the lyrics from Yebba’s song, “Age of Worry,” which reminded her that everyone is searching for answers in their own ways. “Through that understanding, I learned to love the wistful impermanence and dazzling disarray of what it means to be human,” she said.