Heath Schenker is Professor and Chair of the Landscape Architecture Program at UC Davis. Prior to joining the UC faculty in 1990, she practiced landscape architecture in Sacramento and Davis, California and in Boston, Massachusetts, where she also taught at the Boston Architectural Center. She holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley (1968) a B.L.A. from Rhode Island School of Design (1980) and an M.A. in Art History from UC Davis (1988). She is a licensed landscape architect in California (Lic. No. 3383).

Professor Schenker's research bridges the disciplines of landscape architecture and art history, exploring the processes by which concepts of landscape are culturally and socially constructed. She is particularly interested in how landscape representations (e.g. landscape paintings, photographs, gardens and parks) have historically worked as agents of cultural power.

Professor Schenker has investigated the history of landscape representation in California's Central Valley, in both the fine art and commercial art traditions. She received a grant from the California Council for the Humanities for an exhibit entitled: Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley, held at the Haggin Museum, Stockton in the Fall of 1999. The exhibit included visual images (paintings, photographs, maps and promotional images) representing the Central Valley over the span of the previous 150 years. Public programs developed in conjunction with the exhibit included lectures, symposia and a photography workshop. The exhibit catalogue, edited by Schenker, was awarded the Rounce and Coffin Award for Western Books in 2000.

Professor Schenker has also written extensively about the social history of public parks in the nineteenth century and is currently working on a comparative social history of nineteenth-century public parks in London, Paris, New York and Mexico City.

Throughout her 25-year career as a landscape architect, Professor Schenker has explored contemporary concepts of landscape in a series of environmental and gallery installations and conceptual works on paper, as well as in built works of landscape architecture. Her conceptual piece "Parking Performance," performed in 1987, has been repeatedly reviewed and referenced over the ensuing years. Other conceptual works have been included in various exhibits and publications, ranging from "Carscape," a traveling exhibit organized by the Municipal Art Society in New York (1985), to "Miniature Golf on a Suburban Theme," a winning entry in the Unbuilt Landscapes Competition, published in Land Forum 6 (2000).

"Central Park and the Melodramatic Imagination," Journal of Urban History, (Spring 2003)

"Why Urban Parks: A Matter of Equity?" in Once Again, Why Public Parks?, The George Wright Forum, Vo. 19.2. 2002.

"Women, Gardens and the English Middle Class, 1790-1850," in Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art, Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University. 2002.

"Pleasure Gardens, Theme Parks and the Picturesque," in The Landscapes of Theme Parks: Antecedents and Variations, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C. 2002.

"The Garden as Women's Place: Celia Thaxter and Mariana van Rensselaer," co-authored with Suzanne Ouellette. Gendered Landscapes, The Pennsylvania State University, Center for Studies in Landscape History. 2000.

Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley. Heath Schenker (Editor) Berkeley: Heyday Books, 1999.

"Picturing Yolo County, California: Landscape Representation and Regional Identity," co-authored with Diane Cary, Proceedings, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, Washington State University, 1996.

"Women's and Children's Quarters in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco," Gender, Place and Culture Vol. 3, No. 3. Fall, 1996.

"Intersections of Hyperreality and Remorse: Contemporary Landscape Design in California ," Landscape Architecture, Chinese Landscape Architects Society in Taiwan, (Fall 1996)

"Parks and Politics during the Second Empire in Paris," Landscape Journal. XIV-2, (Fall), 1995.

"Languages of Landscape Architecture: A Review," Landscape Journal Vol. XIV-2, (Fall), 1995.

"A Common Language of Landscape Representation: New Zealand and California Painting in the Nineteenth Century," Landscape Review 1995: 2.

"Feminist Interventions in the Histories of Landscape Architecture," Landscape Journal. XIII-2, (Fall), 1994.

"Picturing the Central Valley, " Landscape Vol. 32, No. 2, (Spring), 1994.

"The National Endowment for the Arts: Diffusing Public Art in the Landscape," Proceedings, Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, Washington, D.C., Landscape Architecture Foundation, 1992.

"Desert Sculpture: Nevada Earthworks Update," Nevada Public Affairs Review: Nevada's Evolving Landscape No. 1: 19-24, 1988

"The Machine in the Garden," p. 60-61, in Miller, Catherine G. Carscape: A Parking Handbook. Columbus, Indiana: Washington Street Press, 1988

"Parking Performance," Landscape Architecture 77 No. 5: 96-97, 1987

"American Sublime: Yosemite as Garden," Meanings of the Garden Conference, Proceedings. Francis, Mark and Hester, Randolph T. Center for Design Research, Dept. of Environmental Design, U.C. Davis, May 14-17, 1987

"Three Works in a Critical Frame," Landscape Architecture 75 No. 1: 92-95, 1985

Humanature. by Peter Goin. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996). Book review for ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment. Vol. 5.2, Summer, 1998. p. 146-147.

The Gardens of Ellen Biddle Shipman, by Judith B. Tankard, (Sagaponack, New York: Sagapress, Inc, 1996). Book review for Landscape Journal Vol. 16, No. 2, Fall 1997, p. 201-202.

Garrett Eckbo: Modern Landscapes for Living by Marc Treib and Dorothee Imbert, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Book review for Land Forum: The Critical Review of Landscape Art and Garden Design, (Washington D.C.: Spacemaker Press, Fall/Winter, 1997).

"Out of Site," The Pence Gallery, Davis, California, January 10 - February 3, 2001. Heath Schenker, Phoebe Schenker and Andra Mulhaupt (Co-Curator and exhibitor)

"Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley," The Haggin Museum, Stockton, California, October 17 - December 31, 1999. (Curator)

"Picturing Yolo County," Yolo County Historical Museum, Woodland, California, May 18 - September 15, 1996. (Co-Curator with Diane Cary)

"Six Visions of the Other Landscape," Alumni Show '92, Rhode Island School of Design, Division of Architecture and Design, October 12 - 23, 1992. BEB Gallery, 231 South Main Street, Providence, Rhode Island. (Design work included in a juried exhibition.)

"Carscape," Selected entries from the Columbus Carscape Competition, Traveling Exhibit, 1985 - 1986. (Design work included in a juried exhibition. Also curated the exhibit when it was shown at the University of California, Davis.)

"Carscape," Selected entries from the Columbus Carscape Competition. Municipal Art Society of New York, Urban Center Gallery II. June 26 - July 18, l985. (Design work included in a juried exhibition.)

"Visions for Columbia Point," John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts. Sept.13 - Sept.20, 1981. (Design work invited for exhibition.)

"Landscape at RISD," Exhibition of student and alumni work. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island. Spring, l980. (Design work included in a juried exhibition.)

Rounce and Coffin Award for Western Books, for Picturing California's Other Landscape: The Great Central Valley, 2000.

Unbuilt Landscapes (competition), Land Forum 6. 2000.

Urban Design Award, American Institute of Architects (AIA, Northern California ), Awarded for the Southern Pacific Railyard Project, Sacramento, California. 1992. (Haag Landscape Architecture, consultant to Roma Design Group)

Award of Recognition, Individual Garden Category. Design Arts Competition of the University Arboretum at the University of California, Davis, California. 1988.

Merit Award (Professional), Design Arts. California Council of Landscape Architects (CCLA). Awarded for "Parking Performance," Davis, California. 1987.

Merit Award (Student), American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). Awarded for "Visions for Columbia Point," Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. 1980.

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