Mark R. Hafen MURP Diversity Scholarship

Evangeline Linkous is Program Director and an Associate Professor for the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program at the University of South Florida. She studies the fiscal, legal, and institutional instruments and frameworks used to rationalize management of land resources in rapid growth area. She has published in journals including the Journal of the American Planning Association, Land Use Policy, Urban Affairs Review, and the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. She is currently a Planning Commissioner for the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission and serves on the Executive Board for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Tampa Bay. She has a Ph.D. and Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from New College of Florida.

Ms. Zornitta is the Executive Director of the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission. In this capacity, she manages the long range, comprehensive planning for unincorporated Hillsborough County, City of Tampa, City of Temple Terrace and Plant City.  Ms. Zornitta has over 20 years of experience working in land use planning, comprehensive planning and community planning for local governments in Florida.  Before becoming an Executive Director, Ms. Zornitta held a number of progressively responsible planning positions with the Planning Commission, including serving as Assistant Director for three years.  Prior to working at the Planning Commission, she worked for the City of St. Petersburg, Charlotte County and City of Tallahassee.  Ms. Zornitta holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Government from the College of William and Mary and a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Florida State University.  She is a certified planner with the American Institute of Certified Planner. 

Laura Everitt is VHB’s Transit and Rail Planning Manager for the Gulf Coast region. Throughout her career, Laura has worked with transit agencies to deliver a wide range of projects, from transit development plans to multimodal corridor studies across the southeastern U.S. She served as President for the American Planning Association, Florida Chapter, from 2018 to 2020. Laura holds a Masters in Urban and Environmental Planning, Juris Doctorate, and Bachelor of Art’s degree in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia.

Lucia Garsys is the Senior Advisor to the County Administrator on Community Partnerships for Hillsborough County. Lucia is active in the Urban Land Institute, and previously served as ULI Tampa Bay District Council Chair. She has a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelors of Science in City and Regional Planning from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Stephen Benson serves as Chief Planner for the City of Tampa, Department of City Planning. He has over a decade of experience in transportation engineering, project development, transportation planning and public policy. He joined the City of Tampa in 2019 to coordinate the implementation of Mayor Castor’s Transforming Tampa’s Tomorrow (T3) strategic plan for transit and mobility. Prior to coming to the City of Tampa, he served as the Metropolitan Planning Administrator for FDOT District 7, where he led multi-modal planning programs, complete streets, intergovernmental programs and public involvement. Prior to this role, he served in the District 7 Traffic Operations office and in the government consulting field. While at FDOT, he received innovation, customer service and leadership awards, largely as a result of his contributions on statewide task forces concerning organizational culture, policy implementation, and the relationship between land use context and road safety outcomes. Stephen has held local leadership positions with various organizations, including the American Planning Association and the Congress for the New Urbanism. He also served on the governing board for the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission and the advisory board of the University of South Florida’s Urban & Regional Planning Program. Stephen is a third generation native and resident of Tampa.

Ali is a Senior Planner on the Community Planning and Design Team at Tindale Oliver. She specializes in policy, case study, and interview-based research to determine best practices and actionable, vetted solutions. She creates public outreach and engagement strategies to collaborate with communities in determining their path forward. Her work spans transportation, parks, land use, urban design and development/redevelopment. She volunteers with the Tampa Bay group of CNU Florida and the Suncoast Chapter of the American Planning Association.