Elisa Palazzo

Dr Elisa Palazzo is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney with extensive international experience across academia and professional practice. She holds a PhD in Urban Design, Regional and Environmental Planning, in which she examined the role of landscape architecture in shaping resilient and environmentally responsive cities. Dr Palazzo has taught widely across Europe, Asia, and Australia, including at the Universities of Pisa and Florence and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Her teaching and research span landscape architecture, urban design, and environmental planning. Her research advances regenerative, adaptive, and transdisciplinary approaches to environmental change, with a particular focus on water-sensitive urbanism and sponge city strategies to enhance flood resilience across urban and rural systems. She is actively engaged in projects that bridge cultural landscape values with climate adaptation, including the cultural landscape mapping of the Hunter Valley (NSW) toward national heritage listing. She has also contributed to the Mount Lofty Ranges cultural landscape heritage bid in South Australia. Dr Palazzo is Co-Convenor of the Australia ICOMOS National Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes and Cultural Routes and co-author of the Burra Charter Practice Note on Cultural Landscapes. She is also an expert member of the ICOMOS/IFLA International Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes. A registered landscape architect, architect, and urbanist, Dr Palazzo brings over 20 years of professional experience delivering large-scale, award-winning projects internationally. She has collaborated with leading design practices such as Turenscape, L&A, and THUPDI in China, and has led regeneration projects across Europe, the Middle East, China, and Australia. As International Expert and Scientific Coordinator for the UNESCO Bethlehem Area Conservation and Management Plan, she contributed to the successful World Heritage nominations of two sites in Palestine (2012 and 2014), including a significant viticultural landscape. Adaptive and regenerative urban design, Water sensitive cities, Design for flood adaptation in urban and rural systems, Urban ecology, Flood adaptation, Urban landscape ecology, Bio-cultural and Agricultural landscapes, cultural landscapes, urban landscape, water sensitive urban design, urban design, climate change adaptation, transdisciplinarity, community engagement, adaptive capacity, urban resilience, landscape design, landscape analysis, landscape, urban ecology, world heritage, cultural heritage, geographic information systems, geospatial analysis, agriculture management practice