Karen Firehock

Education

Master of Urban and Environmental Planning, University of Virginia, Bachelor of Natural Resources Management, University of Maryland

Biography

Ms. Firehock is an environmental planner with more than 35 years of experience in natural resources management. She is the director and co-founder of the Green Infrastructure Center (GIC) and oversees green infrastructure planning and research projects. Since 1999, she has served on the adjunct faculty at the University of Virginia and teaches graduate courses in green infrastructure planning, watershed planning and stormwater management and global health and environmental ordinances. She has authored numerous handbooks such as, "A Local Government's Guide to Stream Corridor Protection", and "Collaboration: A Guide for Environmental Advocates" as well as guides for wetland conservation, conservation subdivision design, codes and ordinances for urban forests and watershed planning. Her books include Strategic Green Infrastructure Planning: A multi-scale Approach, Green Infrastructure: Map and Plan the Natural World with GIS, and a co-edited book: Community-based collaboration: Bridging socio-ecological research and practice. She has won local state and national awards for her work such as the National Greenways Award, Nation's Best Surface Water Protection Program, Virginia River Conservationist of the Year Award and Urban Forest Conservationist award from the Southern Group of State Foresters. She and her graduate students also won Design Professional of the Year for the Charlottesville Comprehensive Plans Environmental Sustainability Chapter. Students in her watershed planning class also won an award from the Virginia Planning Association. Ms. Firehock is active in community planning issues. She has served as Chair of the Charlottesville Planning Commission and is currently chair of the Albemarle County Planning Commission and has served on numerous environmental committees at the local, state and national levels. Her current scholarship interests include resiliency planning for coastal communities such as her Resiliency Plan for Norfolk VA., plans for Resilient Coastal Forests for Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, conservation subdivision design, greening cities and addressing climate change impacts and strategies for low income and minority communities.  She has also worked with UVA projects in the Venda Region of South Africa for 8 years and has participated in other international strategy work for Middle Eastern Countries under a grant from the U.S. State Department.