Laura Hall was born and raised in a small city on the San Francisco Peninsula. After receiving her BA (summa cum laude) and MA in landscape architecture at University of California, Berkeley, she went on to teach for the school's Extension program and build an urban design practice. Her projects have included downtown revitalization plans for Northern California communities and pedestrian-friendly zoning codes for Mississippi Gulf towns damaged by Hurricane Katrina. She currently works at the Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco.