Danika Cooper Joins BCNM's Executive Committee

We're excited to welcome Danika Cooper, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, to the Berkeley Center for New Media's Executive Committee!

Danika brings to BCNM a deep engagement with the geopolitics of scarcity, alternative water ontologies, and speculative futures for arid landscapes. Her research reimagines desert ecologies—which are often dismissed as barren or uninhabitable—as vital, complex spaces shaped by colonial histories and ongoing climate crises. In both scholarship and practice, Danika explores how design can foster resiliency in increasingly dry and hot regions, challenging dominant narratives of environmental control and transformation.

Her work has been exhibited and published internationally, spanning theory, visualization, and grounded design practice in the U.S. and India. Through courses like Drawing the Desert and Towards a Resilient Arid Future, she inspires the next generation of designers to think critically and creatively about climate, land, and justice.

We’re thrilled to have her vision and expertise guiding BCNM’s interdisciplinary initiatives!