UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jessica Fegley, who is pursuing her master’s degree in landscape architecture within the Stuckeman School at Penn State, has been awarded the inaugural Milbourn Fellowship from the American Public Gardens Association.
Created in honor of Linda Milbourn, a landscape architect and transformative figure for public gardens, the Milbourn Fellowship provides $5,000 to a graduate-level landscape architecture student. According to Fegley, the fellowship connects the recipient to a garden to complete an experiential learning project over the course of a year.
Fegley’s fellowship with the Gardens of Winterthur in New Castle County, Delaware began in January and her goal is to have most of the work completed upon her graduation from Penn State in May.
Fegley has focused part of her master’s degree thesis on water infrastructure and her contacts at Winterthur are focusing on similar research, in addition to steam restoration, native plants, education and stewardship. Her research was recently recognized with the Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award from the Graduate School at Penn State.
According to Fegley, there is a watershed near Winterthur that collects floodwater from a nearby property, and it is Winterthur’s goal to work with the off-site property to find a solution to minimize water pollution.
“The area has been a bit overlooked in recent years (so) we are trying to bring some more attention and revitalization to that area,” Fegley said. “The off-site property has an engineered plan that’s a large retention basin, and my contacts at Winterthur are hoping to find something that’s a bit more on the green infrastructure side of addressing these issues and maybe creating something that can be viewed as an art piece for the neighboring property.”
Fegley graduated with her undergraduate degree in landscape architecture from Penn State in 2015. Upon graduation, she worked for landscape architecture firm Pashek + MTR in Pittsburgh as a landscape designer.
“While I was there, there were a lot of issues with stormwater runoff and other challenges the city faces and I was really interested in learning more about that specific facet of landscape architecture,” said Fegley.
She also held roles as a landscape architecture intern at MIG|SvR in Seattle in 2020 and at Nelson Byrd Woltz in New York in 2021.
Fegley’s interest in landscape architecture began early on, when she and her friends restored an abandoned courtyard at her high school and were able to watch people’s attitudes change about that space upon its restoration.
“Seeing that transition, both ecologically and socially, and how (landscape architects) can impact how people perceive spaces and feel about them, just got me really interested in this field of study,” she said.