Lauren Leighty

Lauren leads SmithGroup’s nationally-focused Campus Planning Studio. Her career is defined by serving as a trusted partner to higher education institutions, helping them plan for the future while addressing multi-layered and complicated challenges. An urban designer and landscape architect, she is skilled at working across scales. "I began my career focused on detailed design solutions for site-specific projects," she explains. "My background in landscape architecture and urban design allows me to combine my technical understanding of the physical environment with my desire to think at a higher altitude to identify opportunities to enhance campuses and their surrounding communities." Her wide range of project experience, working across the country and with research-intensive universities, private universities, regional comprehensive universities, and community colleges has given her the ability to comprehend a project from its larger, regional context down to a detailed implementation level. Lauren enjoys giving back to the higher education and design communities through volunteerism on the University of Michigan’s Taubman College Alumni Council and the Landscape Architecture Foundation Board of Directors. In her free time, she enjoys visiting cultural attractions. Lauren describes herself as "a self-proclaimed art museum enthusiast. I am incredibly inspired by all forms of fine art and am working toward seeing all the best art museums in the world."