Philip Levy is a Professor of History at the University of South Florida. His work sits at the intersection of history, historical archaeology, landscape, memory, and public history. He is the author of several books dealing with George Washington both as a person and as a national icon. Where the Cherry Tree Grew: The Story of Ferry Farm, George Washington's Boyhood Home (2013) and George Washington Written Upon the Land: Nature, Memory, Myth, and Landscape (2015) focus on the places of Washington childhood. The Permanent Resident: Excavations and Explorations of the Life of George Washington (2022) won the Society for Historical Archaeology's James Deetz Book Prize and explores the many sites of Washington's life and how their stories have been shaped by archaeology and issues of memory and commemoration. His newest book, Yard Birds: The Lives and Times of America's Urban Chickens, tells a very different story from his other work and explores how chickens and cities have shaped one another. Dr. Levy is an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer and also has been extensively involved with the National Park Service. He wrote the new Historical Resource Study (2023) and an extended biographical study of enslaved people for the George Washington Birthplace National Monument and is now working on two book projects emerging from that research. Dr. Levy is the co-chair of the National Council on Public History's Committee on Environmental Sustainability and also is a champion old-time fiddler and prize-winning clawhammer banjo player.