Lee Gjertsen Malone grew up in Rockville Centre, New York and graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Communications. Her professional background includes a range of experiences as a nonprofit professional, writer, and editor. Lee has spent more than ten years as a volunteer for the American Red Cross, most recently as the regional sheltering program lead for the National Capital & Greater Chesapeake Region. She has opened and run disaster shelters in DC, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Oregon, North Carolina, and beyond; as a Red Cross instructor, she has taught a variety of disaster response and preparedness classes. Lee also served as the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator with Volunteer Alexandria, through which she managed emergency preparedness volunteer programs, supported court-order community service programs, developed partnerships with city agencies and community organizations, engaged in outreach efforts for historically underserved communities, and crafted newsletters and social media posts. In addition, for many years, Lee has worked as a freelance journalist, magazine feature writer, writing teacher, and book editor. She has written two children’s novels published by Simon & Schuster.