Archives: Faculties

Idris Jeelani

Idris Jeelani

M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management
Assistant Professor
352-273-1164
RINKER 317

Ph.D. Civil Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2019
M.S. Civil Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2016
B.Tech. Civil Engineering, NIT Silchar, 2011

Dr. Jeelani leads the Construction Automation and safety (CAS) research group, at the Rinker School of Construction Management. His research focuses on construction safety, visual data analytics, and cognitive sciences to support the building of the next generation of safe and smart infrastructure. He joined UF in 2019 after completing his Ph.D. and MS in civil engineering from North Carolina State university. Over the years, he has worked on multiple research projects focusing on : (1) visual attention behavior of construction workers and its impact on their safety performance, (2) augmenting worker performance through the development of AI solutions, and (3) evaluating the health and safety impacts of automated and robotic machines in construction.

The outcomes of the research have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Jeelani developed the first personalized hazard-recognition training intervention for construction workers in 2016. The work was published in the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management and awarded the best paper of 2017 and was nominated for the Norman medal. Dr. Jeelani has also developed the first algorithm to map real-world gaze fixations of dynamic human subjects and developed a novel vision-based automated hazard detection system for construction. The work will be instrumental in augmenting human worker’s performance in detecting hazards on construction job sites. Currently, Dr. Jeelani is working on multiple projects funded by NSF and the US Department of Labor investigating the health and safety implications of UAVs on construction job sites, and building the AI-based tools to improve safety performance in construction.

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Emre Tepe

Emre Tepe

Department of Urban and Regional Planning
Assistant Professor
352-294-1487
AH 444

Emre Tepe, Ph.D. has joined the University of Florida School of Landscape Architecture and Planning for the Fall 2019 semester as an Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning. Dr. Tepe works on modeling spatio-temporal dynamics of land development. He also builds statistical software and applications for large-scale data processing. His primary academic interests include Spatial Econometrics, Urban Simulation, Spatial Statistics & Analysis, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Optimization, Urban Economics, and Software Development.

After graduated from Istanbul Technical University with a bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning and a master’s degree in urban planning. He was awarded a Fulbright Doctoral Scholarship to study at the Ohio State University and he earned his PhD in City and Regional Planning from the Ohio State University. He was also received Patricia Burgess Award for the Best Dissertation upon completion of his doctoral study.

Prior to beginning his position at the University of Florida, he worked as Assistant Professor at Gebze Technical University for almost 2 years, and as Adjunct Faculty in Kadir Has and Cankaya Universities for about a year in Turkey. He has taught courses on statistics, quantitative methods, urban economy, housing and planning practices. Currently, he teaches Quantitative Data Analysis for Planners, Urban Spatial Analysis, Urban Economy and Urban Planning Project courses in the Urban and Regional Planning graduate programs at UF.

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Lisa Platt

Lisa Platt

Department of Interior Design, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)
Assistant Professor
352-294-1435
AH 334

Savannah College of Art and Design, BA
Kansas State University, MS
State University of New York at Binghamton, Ph.D.

Areas of Focus:
Sustainability (Building Materials, Built Environment Resilience, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health Sciences, Sustainable Public Policy, Sustainable Architecture and Design)
My research focuses on using Artificial Intelligence and dynamic modeling to evaluate scenarios for preventative designs that reduce risks to human health. This research includes how phenomena such as climate change, which is having a demonstrated effect on infectious conditions and disease epidemiology, impact community health infrastructure and health system resilience. This area of study’s primary purpose is to explore the potentials that predictive Systems Science and Engineering approaches have in informing reliable risk moderation and sustainable system optimization strategies for environmental planning paradigms successful in moderating outside design basis system hazards.

Bio:
Dr. Lisa Platt is the Interior Design department faculty and research representative for the University of Florida’s College of Design Construction and Planning Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER). Her work in research, student mentoring, and teaching is driven by the concept of designing and building proactively adaptive and human-centered environmental systems. Her career in healthcare design and systems improvement analysis has been to discover ways thoughtfully applied translational research can elicit practical innovation for improving human and system resilience. Her experience as a licensed Interior Designer and operations systems analyst has allowed her to collaborate with quality, health, safety, and environment management teams in high-risk industries in the U.S. and internationally. She has also had the benefit of being able to work with health system patients, rehabilitation, and long-term care resident groups around the world seeking ways to use human-centered design for improving individual and population health, safety, and wellbeing.

Dr. Platt’s current research focus is on using Artificial Intelligence and Human Factors for integrating Prevention through Design in healthcare environments. The primary purpose of this study is to explore potentials that predictive Systems Science and Engineering approaches have in informing reliable risk moderation and resilience optimization strategies for environment of care planning paradigms successful in moderating outside design basis system hazards.

Dr. Platt currently teaches the undergraduate Interior Finishes and Materials course and the DCP Doctoral Core 4 seminar focusing on assisting Ph.D. students in dissertation research conceptualization, writing, and leveraging for employment opportunities. She is also currently in the process of developing a graduate-level course for using applied quantitative methods and machine learning for design research.

Her educational background includes a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design, a Master of Science in Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Systems Science with a focus in Health Systems Engineering.

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Hal Knowles

Hal Knowles

Sustainability and the Built Environment
Instructional Assistant Professor and Change Agent
352-294-6781
AH 150

Areas of Focus:
Sustainability (Building Energy, Built Environment Resilience, Renewable Energy, Smart Buildings/Cities, Sustainable Construction, Sustainable Technology)

Summary of Teaching, Research, and Outreach Interests
Hal Knowles is interested in several interdisciplinary domains including: (1) fostering resilience and cultivating adaptive capacity across the natural-to-urban transect; (2) exploring complexity and regime shifts within linked social-ecological systems; (3) improving human and community health in the built environment, especially within the emerging ancestral health paradigm; (4) engendering social justice in community development form and function; and (5) integrating organizational leadership, conservation behaviors, energy efficiency, and renewable energy as mitigation strategies for the dual global challenges of climate change and energy transition. His current work branches building-to-city scales and involves: (1) modeling the geospatial resource impacts of alternative urban land use scenarios; (2) evaluating social equity in housing, transportation, and neighborhood opportunities; and (3) deciphering energy use patterns and building performance via nonlinear analytical methods, such as multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA) and cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA).

Teaching and Mentoring Experience
For the 2018/2019 school year, Hal will be teaching 11 credit hours in Fall 2018 (DCP 3200, DCP 4945, and URP 4000), nine credit hours in Spring 2019 (DCP 1241, DCP 3210, and DCP 3220), and six credit hours in Summer 2019 (DCP 3210 and DCP 3220). In the past, he was the lead instructor for the DCP 4941 – Practicum in SBE, a six credit course (Fall 2015, Fall 2016, and Spring 2018) and EVR 2001 – Introduction to Environmental Science, a three credit course (Fall 2017). Since the Spring 2016 semester, Hal has also served several students as their project mentor for the DCP 4290 Capstone Project in SBE. In 2017/2018, he served on an M.S. thesis committee for a student in the Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences. During the 2018/2019 school year, Hal is actively serving on one M.S. thesis committee and one Ph.D. dissertation committee within the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. In recent years, he has also been invited to give 42 separate guest lectures, across 18 courses, within 11 departments, at two universities.

Research, Writing, and Content Development Experience
Hal’s publications include chapter sections in four books (contributing author), four refereed journal articles (plus another two in development for submission), and 46 non-refereed publications (38 of which he was first or sole author). He has also led development of, and delivered, nine instructional multimedia curricula and related course materials for professionals and lay audiences across Florida. Hal’s experience in web-based communication and teaching includes project management and principal content development for two websites and conceptual co-developer, collaborator, and analytical consultant for two websites, one of which (My Florida Home Energy) has grown tenfold since its launch in June 2013 and has served over 48,000 users with 86% as new sessions.

Project Funding and Achievements
From 2005 through 2017 at the UF Program for Resource Efficient Communities, Hal contributed to 42 funded projects totaling approximately $2.46 million, including the following: $152,735 as PI/Manager/Instructor; $1,024,760 as Co-PI; $376,959 as Investigator; and $908,710 as Senior Personnel. In 2016, he earned his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Ecology from the UF School of Natural Resources and Environment and was promoted to Associate In faculty status within the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. In 2018, Hal was was named one of two Florida Climate Institute Faculty Fellows.

Speaking and Conference Experience
Since 2005, Hal has spoken at 43 professional events: two international (both selected), six national (three invited, three selected), 27 state (18 invited, nine selected), and eight local (five invited, three selected). Additionally, he served as lead event planner and facilitator for GreenTrends 2006, the statewide annual conference for the Florida Green Building Coalition.

 

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Jeffrey Carney

Jeffrey Carney

School of Architecture, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)
Associate Professor + Director FIBER
352-294-3373
AH 246

BA, Washington University in St. Louis
M.Arch and MCP, University of California, Berkeley

Areas of Focus: Sustainability  Bio: Jeff Carney is a registered architect and certified city planner working at the interface of housing, neighborhoods, and ecosystems with a focus on climate change adaptation. He is associate professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Florida, director of the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER), and director of the Florida Resilient Cities program (FRC). Jeff’s work in Florida is focused on the resilience of communities achieved through transdisciplinary and community engaged design processes. His current projects include a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funded effort to design post-disaster modular housing, and an FRC project to assist the panhandle City of Port St. Joe to recover from Hurricane Michael that is supported by the Jessie Ball Dupont fund. Previously, Jeff was the director of the LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio (CSS) where he led the development of the Louisiana Resiliency Assistance Program (LRAP) that continues to assist communities throughout Louisiana; additionally, he led the design and fabrication of the 10,000sf permanent exhibition for the LSU Center for River Studies called “shifting Foundations” which told the story of coastal Louisiana’s changing landscape and the new paradigms in protection and restoration needed to create a more sustainable coast. He co-directed his team’s award-winning submission for the Changing Course competition entitled “The Giving Delta,” that reimagined Louisiana’s ecological systems and coastal communities in the context of climate change. Shortly before moving to UF Jeff initiated and led the project “Inland from the Coast,” a three-year grant supported by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Jeff’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and his projects and scholarship have been published widely. His projects have been recognized through awards including the 2018 AIABR Rose Award winner for the Shifting Foundations exhibit; the 2016 New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Merit Award, for “The Giving Delta”; the 2014 APA Planning Excellence Award for Education, for the Louisiana Resilience Assistance Program; the 2012 ACSA Collaborative Practice Award, for the Coastal Sustainability Studio; and the 2011 EDRA Great Places Awards in Design Research for “Measured Change: Tracking Transformations on Bayou Lafourche.” Jeff teaches undergraduate and graduate level architecture studios and multi-disciplinary seminars on resilience design and planning at the building, neighborhood, and regional scale. Jeff received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and master’s degrees in both architecture and city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Jeff was awarded the Branner Fellowship to conduct a year-long research project to study the evolution of modernist neighborhood-scale urbanism in Europe, South America, and Asia, an experience which continues to shape his work today.

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Jason von Meding

Jason von Meding

M.E Rinker, Sr. School of Construction Management, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)
Associate Professor
352-294-3374
RINKER 344

Ph.D. Construction (Disaster) Management, BArch, BSc Architecture – All Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Areas of Focus:
Sustainability (Built Environment Resilience)

Research:
My research focuses on the injustices and inequalities that are foundational to our social system, and how disasters unveil society and show us what needs to change. At its core, my intellectual pursuits are interrogating what a sustainable social/political/economic future would look like, and demonstrating that we are not on such a pathway.

Bio:
Dr. Jason von Meding is an Associate Professor in Rinker School and a founding faculty member of the Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER). He is a researcher, educator and communicator in disaster studies who joined the University of Florida in 2019. His research is primarily community-centered and highly participatory, focusing on how injustice and inequality are the fundamental drivers of risk in society, and therefore shape disaster impacts.

Before moving to the U.S. he spent 6 years at the University of Newcastle, Australia, where he established the Disaster and Development Research Group and was recognized as Researcher of the Year at the institution level in 2017. His Ph.D. was conferred by the Queen’s University of Belfast in Northern Ireland, where he also spent 3 years on faculty from 2010-2013 and before that trained as an architect in the early 2000s.

Jason has taught students around the world about disasters for over a decade – from the societal root causes of risk to post-disaster professional practice. At the University of Florida, he delivers courses about the history of shelter, housing and sustainable construction. He is Coordinator of CIB Working Commission 120 – Disasters and the Built Environment and is a popular speaker in the disaster studies field. As part of his focus on public facing science communication, he is co-host of the Disasters: Deconstructed Podcast and tweets @vonmeding.

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Ryan Sharston

Ryan Sharston

School of Architecture, Rinker School of Construction Management, Florida Institute for the Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)
Assistant Professor
352-294-3375
AH 246

University of Michigan
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Areas of Focus:
Sustainability (Building Energy, Building Materials, Built Environment Resilience, Renewable Energy, Smart Buildings/Cities, Sustainable Architecture and Design, Sustainable Construction, Sustainable Technology)
I am interested in improving the energy as well as the occupant- related health performance of the built environment through advancements in building envelopes

Bio:
Dr. Ryan Sharston is an architect and a civil and environmental engineer. For nearly two decades, he has taught, researched and practiced sustainable design and construction and environmental technologies in various academic and industrial settings.

His research focuses on computational building modeling, building performance evaluation, indoor environmental quality and occupants’ health and well-being. He has taught architectural design studios and building and environmental technologies at the University of Michigan and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

In his professional practice, he has served as lead engineer and construction manager for numerous projects, with a particular focus on technologically advanced and integrated designs and constructions.

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Yan Wang

Yan Wang

Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)
Assistant Professor
(352) 294-3376
AH 456

Ph.D. Civil Engineering, Virginia Tech
Master of Accounting, Asset Valuation, Beijing Jiaotong University
Bachelor of Management, Construction Engineering and Management, Beijing Jiaotong University

Areas of Focus:  Sustainability (Built Environment Resilience, Smart Buildings/Cities) building sustainability through resilient built environment research and better infrastructure planning for emerging technologies to reduce GHG emission.

Bio: Dr. Wang’s research concerns resilient, smart, and safe cities. She studies the resilience of humans and the built environment to natural hazards and public health crises. She also develops data-driven intelligent system to enable agility in disaster and emergency response, and to detect small-scale crises for urban safety. Her research also engages evidence-based planning for urban resilience and data-informed infrastructure planning for future cities. Dr. Wang’s expertise includes multimodal data analytics (including natural language processing and computer vision), complex network analysis, spatiotemporal analyses, and real-time geo-visualization. Her interdisciplinary projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation (Awards #2028012, #1951816, #1760645), Natural Hazards Center, DCP Research Initiative SEED Grant and Global Fellow Program Seed Grant.

Research Topics

Urban Resilience

Urban Analytics

Climate Adaptation

Crisis Informatics

Human Dynamics

Smart Environment

Affiliations

Founding Faculty, Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER)

Founder, Urban Agility and Resilience Laboratory

Affiliate Faculty, UF Informatics Institute

Affiliate Faculty, UF Transportation Institute

Affiliate Faculty, Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World

Awards

University of Florida Excellence Awards for Assistant Professors (2022)

ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering Honorable Mention Award (2021)

University of Florida Research Promotion Initiative Award (2021)

Excellence in Research Award, College of Design, Construction and Planning (2021)

Great Teaching Certificate, UF Center for Teaching Excellence (2021)

Weather Ready Research Fellowships, Natural Hazard Center (NSF &NOAA) (2021)

Mitigation Matters Award, Natural Hazard Center, 2020

Global Research Fellow, by University of Florida, November 8, 2018

Virginia Tech IGEP BioBuild Fellowship, by Virginia Tech, Aug. 2015 – May 2018

Selected Grants

2024-2025 PI: RAPID: Assessing Urgent Time Use Dynamics Among Time-Poor Populations in Preparation for Hurricane Helene and Milton
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2505675)
Program: CMMI-HDBE-Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment

2024-2025 PI: Investigating Neighborhood Mobility Resilience and Aging Vulnerability under Environmental Shocks
Sponsor: National Institute on Aging, Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center at the University of Florida
Program: Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) Pilot Study

2023-2026 Co-PI: Collaborative Research: SaTC: CORE: Medium: Information Integrity: A User-centric Intervention
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2323794)
Program: CNS-Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace

2023-2026 PI: Spatial Explanation and Planning for Resilience of Community-Based Small Businesses to Environmental Shocks
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2316450)
Program: CMMI-HDBE-Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment

2022-2023 Faculty: GulfSouth Studio
Sponsor: The National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine

2021-2022 PI: SCC-PG: SmartCurb: Building Smart Urban Curb Environments
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2124858)
Program: Smart and Connected Communities – Planning Grants

2020-2021 PI: RAPID: Dynamic Interactions between Human and Information in Complex Online Environments Responding to SARS-COV-2.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #2028012)
Program: CMMI-Humans, Disasters and Built Environment

2020-2021 Co-PI: SCC-PG: Coordinated Safety Management Across Smart Communities
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #1951816)
Program: Smart and Connected Communities – Planning Grants

2018-2019 PI (Sub award): RAPID: Discovering Crises within Crises – Real-Time Detection, Tracking and Visualization of Emergent Crises in Hurricanes.
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (Award #1760645)
Program: CISE-Information & Intelligent Systems

2021-2022 PI: Weather Ready Research Fellowship: Assessing the Impact of Geo-Targeted Warning Messages on Residents Evacuation Decisions Before a Hurricane
Sponsor: Natural Hazards Center (flow from NSF and NOAA)

2021-2021 Key Personnel: Upper Suwannee River Resilience Columbia County and The Town of White Springs
Sponsor: Florida Department of Economic Opportunity

2021 PI: Assessing Disaster Impact in Real Time (ADIR): A Data-Driven System Integrating Human, Hazards, and the Built Environment
Sponsor: UF Office of the Provost-Research Promotion Initiative Award

2020-2021 PI: Examining Digital Vulnerability to Flooding Among Subsidized Housing Residents in Florida.
Sponsor: Natural Hazards Center-Mitigation Matters Research Program.

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Yi Luo

Yi Luo

Department of Landscape Architecture
Assistant Professor
AH 432

• Ph.D. in Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning, Texas A&M University, 2014
• Master of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, Utah State University, 2007
• Bachelor of Architecture & Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, 2002

Areas of Focus:
Sustainability (Built Environment Resilience, Renewable Energy, Smart Buildings/Cities, Sustainable Architecture and Design, Sustainable Construction)
My research has been focusing on landscape performance evaluation, which quantifies the post-performance of sustainable landscape projects (range from individual residential property to urban plaza, and city and regional scale), and shows the value of sustainable design practices.

Bio:
Yi Luo, PhD, PLA is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Florida. Prior to joining the University of Florida, Yi taught at Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University. Yi received her Bachelor of Architecture from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, Master of Landscape Architecture from Utah State University, and PhD in Urban and Regional Science from Texas A&M University.  Her areas of interest are landscape performance evaluation, sustainability assessment, performance evaluation metrics and methods, therapeutic landscapes, and stormwater management and low impact development. Yi’s research has been funded by various agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Landscape Architecture Foundation, and Jessie Ball DuPont.

Before pursuing her PhD at Texas A&M University, Yi practiced landscape architecture and architecture in multidisciplinary firms in the United States and China with efforts to promote green building and sustainable development. She is a licensed landscape architect (Utah).

Yi advises Ph.D. and Master students and teaches a wide range of studio and lecture courses:

  • Site Design and Planning (Studio)
  • Landscape Construction (Studio)
  • Capstone Project (Studio)
  • Research Methods
  • Advanced Landscape Architecture (Studio)
  • Collaboration Studio (Studio)
  • History of Landscape Architecture
  • Graduate and Undergraduate Seminars

 

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Andrea Galinski

Andrea Galinski

Department of Landscape Architecture
Assistant Professor
352-294-1494
AH 442

• Master of Landscape Architecture, Louisiana State University, 2010
• Bachelor of Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University, 2002

Areas of Focus:

Built Environment Resilience + Climate Change Adaptation


Sustainability (Built Environment Resilience)
In relation to the UN’s perspective on “sustainability,” (sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”), I’ve been focused on sustainability in terms of conducting research that assists communities to become more resilient to climate change impacts (flooding, heat, etc.), and to develop strategies that support thriving amidst long-term change.

Bio:

Andrea is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at University of Florida Department of Landscape Architecture. She is also a research affiliate with the UF Shimberg Center for Housing Studies and Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience (FIBER).

Andrea’s passion is to advance climate resilient design and planning in teaching and research. She teaches foundational coursework and interdisciplinary design studios with a concentration on issues of climate change, equity, and other critical topics.

Andrea’s research explores the nexus between climate change and affordable housing. Her research has been supported by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Gulf Research Program (NASEM GRP), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Florida Sea Grant (FSG), Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Florida Housing Finance Corporation (FHFC), and others.

Previously, Andrea worked in Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) to develop the state’s 50 year/$50 billion Coastal Master Plan to protect and restore the coast in the context of a changing climate. She also taught at Louisiana State University (LSU) focusing on research-based design of landscape infrastructure along the Louisiana coast.

Andrea has a Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) from Louisiana State University’s Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture. She has transdisciplinary Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Ph.) degree in “Human Ecology” from Penn State University. She currently lives in Gainesville, FL with her husband, two children, a dog, two cats, and a revolving flock of suburban chickens.

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