Brechner Lecture – Tracing Florida Journeys with author Leslie Kemp Poole
Sunday, April 26th, 2026, 2 – 3 p.m.
Leslie Poole is associate professor of environmental studies at Rollins College. A fourth-generation Floridian, Poole’s work focuses on the state’s environmental history and literature. She is the author of four books, including Tracing Florida Journeys: Explorers, Travelers, and Landscapes Then and Now, published by the University of Florida Press in 2024. Her talk today will include a chapter from that book about William Bartram as well as her years of reading, researching, and following Bartram’s path in Florida.
Leslie Kemp Poole
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Rollins College
Poole is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. She received her PhD in History from the University of Florida in 2012. Her articles have been published in a number of academic journals and she regularly presents papers about her research at history conferences. In 2008 she appeared in the PBS documentary In Marjorie's Wake which retraced a 1933 trip on the St. Johns River taken by noted author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. In January 2019 she appeared in the PBS Documentary The Swamp, part of the American Experience series, talking about the history of Florida's Everglades. Poole also has worked as a freelance author for a number of magazines and publications.
Prior to working in academia, Poole was a reporter for several newspapers, including the Orlando Sentinel, where she helped pen a series of articles about Florida's lack of growth management that won a national award.