The study and preservation of cultural landscapes has been a major focus of Kimball Erdman’s academic training and professional practice. Erdman earned a B.L.A. with a minor in history at Utah State University and completed his M.L.A. at the University of Oregon, where he studied East Asian and American landscape design history and completed his thesis under the direction of Kenneth Helphand.

Since graduating, Erdman has accumulated 10 years of professional experience at two firms in Vermont. As a project manager at Heritage Landscapes in Charlotte, he applied his academic focus through planning for culturally sensitive landscapes. This position afforded him the opportunity to become deeply familiar with specific works by such master designers as Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux, Beatrix Farrand, Ruth Havey, Cass Gilbert, Thomas Jefferson and Ellen Biddle Shipman, among others. He also broadened the scope of his professional experience by focusing on the design and construction documentation processes with the SE Group in Burlington, a firm with an international reputation in mountain resort planning.

Erdman has participated in numerous award-winning preservation projects. This list includes the President’s Award of Excellence from the Vermont Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects for two cultural landscape reports; Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest in Forest, Va., and Martha Brookes Hutcheson’s Merchiston Farm in Far Hills, N.J. Erdman will bring his professional expertise to the University of Arkansas by teaching the history of landscape architecture sequence and design studios.