Born and raised in the Florida Keys, it has been my good fortune to be surrounded by tropical hardwood hammock, the Atlantic Ocean and Florida Bay. My mother, Donna N. Sprunt, now retired, was the owner and operator of a native plant nursery (Florida Keys Native Nursery, Inc.) for over eighteen years. My father, Alexander “Sandy” Sprunt, IV, followed the footsteps of his father, Alexander Sprunt, Jr. as a lifelong activist in conservation through the Research Department of the National Audubon Society in Tavernier, Florida.

I attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida for my undergraduate studies with a major in horticulture (BS). After returning to the Florida Keys, I opened an environmental consulting business primarily conducting habitat delineations, environmental assessments, and preparing restoration plans. Meanwhile, I also attended graduate school at Florida International University in landscape architecture (MLA) with special emphasis on natural areas planning. Finally, in 2010 I completed a doctoral program in Botany at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.