Stephanie Nordoff, Community Landscape Designer, RI
Stephanie assists with community projects to regreen cities and towns using trees as green infrastructure. She joins the RI field team following her landscape architecture degree where she developed a strong foundation in design, ecology, and planning.
Prior to joining GIC she served as a Coastal and Environmental Life Sciences Fellow at the University of Rhode Island (URI) where she contributed to launching the URI Regenerative Community Design Lab (RCDL), a partnership between URI’s Landscape Architecture Program and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management’s Urban & Community Forestry Program. Building on this experience, she led a team of six URI RCDL students in 2025 to support municipalities across Rhode Island, helping transform community input into actionable design strategies that position towns for future investment and implementation.
Through these projects, Ms. Nordhoff has cultivated a design approach that bridges ecological health with human experience. She is trained in human-centered design and skilled at working directly with communities to surface priorities and aspirations. Translating complex site conditions into visually compelling, accessible plans, she creates designs that are both environmentally resilient and socially meaningful. This integration of analytical precision and creative vision underscores her belief that landscapes should function as systems that strengthen both ecological processes and community well-being.
Stephanie’s career prior to landscape architecture spans over 25 years of leadership in both military and civilian sectors. A retired U.S. Navy Captain, she managed large-scale teams, multimillion-dollar contracts, and strategic communications programs. These experiences sharpened her skills in collaboration, human-centered design, and systems thinking, qualities that now inform her work as a designer. Combining her passion for landscapes with her proven leadership, Ms. Nordhoff is committed to creating resilient, inclusive, and inspiring environments that serve both people and nature. Stephanie earned her Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Rhode Island in 2025.