- Posted on 9 Sep 2025
- 5-minute read
Professor Elizabeth Mossop joins UTS Business School
Accomplished scholar and practitioner Professor Elizabeth Mossop joins the Business School as Professor of Urban Resilience, where she will be leading research to advance innovative, community-focused approaches to climate adaptation and urban resilience.
UTS Business School welcomes Professor Elizabeth Mossop, who will be working closely with the UTS Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience, where she will be expanding her work on the award-winning Living Labs Northern Rivers (LLNR) project by establishing Adaptation Labs Australia, an umbrella organisation for living labs responding to climate issues across the nation.
LLNR is a joint three-year initiative between Southern Cross University, the NSW Government and UTS, bringing communities, government, industry and cross-disciplinary experts together to develop solutions and knowledge in response to climate disasters in the region, and Adaptation Labs Australia will build on its success and apply this methodology to other regions and issues in Australia.
We are delighted to welcome Professor Mossop to the Business School as she continues her important work in understanding how we can better support local communities, businesses and ecosystems adapt and thrive in the face of increasing climate-change related challenges
“Building resilience and local expertise is paramount to ensuring the wellbeing and livelihoods of communities across the country beyond, many of whom are at the forefront of significant and life-changing climate-related impacts to their environments. This supports the Business School’s mission to foster innovative and sustainable solutions that drive positive change and empower our communities to flourish.”
Professor Mossop’s research at the Business School will focus on three areas: development and sharing of IP and learnings from the key Living Lab projects; fostering an adaptation community of practice of key stakeholders across industry, government and NGOs; and developing a comprehensive exhibition on adaptation to share experiences and learning with sector and community partners.
Elizabeth will also continue her leadership of LLNR as its Academic Director and work towards establishing Adaptation Labs Australia.
Professor Mossop is an accomplished landscape architect and urbanist, and founding principal of Spackman Mossop & Michaels landscape architects based in Sydney and New Orleans. Her professional practice concentrates on urban infrastructure and open space projects such as the multiple award-winning Bowen Place Crossing in Canberra, Press Street Gardens in New Orleans, and Sydney’s Cook and Phillip Park. She has also been involved in many aspects of the post-hurricane reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and the ongoing revitalisation of Detroit.
She has previously served as Dean of the University’s Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building from 2016-2023, and led formative work on the University’s Creative Industries Strategy.
Prior to her time at UTS, Elizabeth was Professor of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University, one of the highest ranked landscape architecture programs in the US. Previously, she was the Director of the Masters of Landscape Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
