Diana Guo

Diana Guo is a Doctoral Student in Urban Planning at Columbia GSAPP. Her current research looks at ecologies of migration and environmental displacement in the urban margins, beyond the peripheries of the traditional city. She is particularly interested in alternative models of agricultural land use and material distribution that build community resistance, food sovereignty, and relationality in order to defy land dispossession.

She holds a BA in Urban Studies from Vassar College, a Masters in Landscape Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University and a post-professional degree (M.Des) in Ecologies, where she received the GSD Design Studies Domain Prize and Award for Excellence from the American Society of Landscape Architects. Her master’s publication, Making Transpacific Kin: Bodily Excess in the Anthropocene, traces the accidental introduction of hitchhiking invasive species brought to U.S land through transpacific shipping routes. Through the lenses of political ecology and racial capitalism, this work investigates how biodiversity protection, race/belonging, and nationhood are entangled in the U.S Department of Agriculture and environmental regulations at the regional scale.

Before starting her PhD, Diana worked for research organizations such as the Harvard Joint Center for Housing, the Climate Justice Design Fellowship, and as Curator for the GSD Kirkland Gallery from 2022-2023. During her time at Harvard, she served as Teaching Assistant for multiple courses related to infrastructure and climate inequality, and was lead columnist for the Environment Column at MIT Out of Frame Magazine. She has practiced internationally in landscape architecture and urban design firms at MASS Design Group, Perkins + Will, and ASPECT Studios, among others. Diana’s work has been supported by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, and the Penny White Fellowship.