In Memoriam: Dr. Mark Simmons

Dr. Mark Simmons, director of the Ecosystem Design Group at The University of Texas at Austin Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, died August 31, 2015, in Austin, Texas, due to complications from battling leukemia.

Simmons was born in Falmouth, England, and served as a pilot for the Royal Air Force and as part of Mission Aviation Fellowship, an Australian non-profit that flies for disaster relief and other humanitarian efforts. He received a bachelor's in environmental science from the University of Lancaster in the United Kingdom, and both a bachelor's and master's in botany from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. While at the University of Cape Town from 1994 to 1997, he began serving as an environmental consultant.

Mark joined the Wildflower Center in 2000 and received his doctorate in rangeland ecology and management at Texas A&M University in 2003.

A dynamic leader, Mark led research and design projects at the Wildflower Center focused on restoring landscapes and urban green spaces to improve their environmental benefits. Among his research accomplishments were the most comprehensive study of the impact of commercial vegetated roofs, developing a turf of native grasses for Texas and nearby states that requires less water and chemical inputs than traditional lawns, demonstrating the value of prescribed fires for controlling non-native plant species and restoring landscapes, and developing a medium for green roofs made of all-sustainable materials and native plants.

Mark also led more than a dozen environmental design projects that transformed hundreds of acres of landscapes, including the 23-acre George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, the 8-mile-long Mission Reach restoration project in San Antonio, the Southwest Greenway in Austin's Mueller Park, and the landscape master plan at The University of Texas at Austin. His group led workshops on projects such as restoration plans for national park landscapes in five states.

He taught university and professional courses on ecological landscape design and restoration ecology at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. He sat on several technical committees including the Landscape Architecture Foundation and the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES™). In November 2013, he received a national research award for advancing the profession from the American Society of Landscape Architects, after he was recognized that May by the society's Texas Chapter for his impact on environmental awareness and policy.

Mark was passionate about the role that landscapes can play in improving our lives, particularly in urban environments. In November 2013, he delivered a TEDx talk on the topic. One of his goals was to bring prairies into the city, and he worked toward the day that our cities would be home to the largest expanse of Blackland Prairie, a highly endangered ecosystem.

He is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters. He will be sorely missed.

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