Michael Van Valkenburgh is a Principal at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. Through his creative leadership of the firm, Van Valkenburgh pursues a lifelong interest in landscape as a living design medium that deepens and enriches people’s lives- in cities, on campuses, in gardens, and elsewhere. The experiential dimension of landscape and the aspects of its human use motivate him as a designer and define the purpose and range of his work. Van Valkenburgh oversees both the Cambridge and New York offices, and is involved on some level with every project the firm undertakes.

Van Valkenburgh was awarded the 2003 National Design Award in Environmental Design by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and is the Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture and Professor in Practice at Harvard University Graduate School of Design School, where he has taught since 1982, serving as Chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture from 1991-1996. Van Valkenburgh received a BS from Cornell University College of Agriculture in 1973 and a MLA from the College of Fine Arts at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1977. 

Michael Van Valkenburgh is an avid volleyball player.