Lisa Lindeman
Founder
she/her
Gina Misch
Strategic Advisor
she/her
Luke Lindeman
Game Designer
he/him
Nova Norman
Narrative Designer
they/them
Lisa Lindeman, Ph.D.
Founder
Second Haven was built by Lisa Lindeman, who manages the Minecraft and Discord servers. Lisa earned her BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1999. At Berkeley, she studied the relationship between cognition, emotion, and physical health. The profound overlap between physical health and emotional well-being informed the choice of target audiences for Second Haven (chronic conditions that are physical, psychological, or both). At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she earned her doctorate, she established an independent lab to study the role of conceptual metaphor and embodied cognition in generating emotional experience.
Between 2010 and 2020, she worked for multiple non-profit organizations dedicated to supporting the emotional development and well-being of children and adolescents. For seven years, she was the Director of Research at Prime Time, a non-profit in Palm Beach County, Florida, where she evaluated the impact of supportive adults and high-quality social settings on the social and emotional well-being of children.
After leaving Prime Time, she became a research consultant for the Palm Health Foundation, Youth Speak Out International, and QTurn, thought leaders that offer support and education to children and youth across the country.
After 2020, she developed long COVID, and in 2022, was diagnosed with Stage III cancer. She is currently in remission but continues to cope with complex, chronic illness (primarily myalgic encephalomyelitis, or chronic fatigue syndrome, and postural orthostatic tachycardia).
Her username, MomLisa, comes from her Minecraft beginnings: playing with her two sons when they were young.
Gina Misch
Strategic Advisor
Regina Misch supports Second Haven as its Strategic Advisor, bringing more than 20 years of experience guiding strategy, strengthening impact, and building evidence systems that help mission-driven organizations grow sustainably. She has partnered with healthcare systems, nonprofits, and digital initiatives to design frameworks that not only measure outcomes, but inform decision-making, attract funding, and support responsible scale.
Her work emphasizes mixed-methods research, carefully selecting quantitative and qualitative approaches that best serve stakeholders and participants. Grounded in rigor, ethics, and accessibility, she centers lived experience, recognizing that meaningful evidence includes both measurable outcomes and the voices behind the numbers.
She holds a Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Southern California and a MA. in Sociology from Humboldt State University. She is currently pursuing a dual doctoral program at Quantum University that awards both a Ph.D. and a Doctor of Natural Medicine degree, exploring Consciousness Medicine and the integration of systems science, health, and human awareness. Outside of her professional work, she is most at home kayaking, where being “in the flow” is both practice and philosophy. Within the Second Haven community, she connects under her Minecraft gamertag, Etherness.
Luke Lindeman
Game Designer & Technical Developer
Luke is a game designer and technical contributor for Second Haven who helps shape the platform’s quests, puzzles, and interactive world experiences. He contributes to puzzle design, game mechanics, worldbuilding, pilot testing, and iterative refinement, with a particular interest in cooperative problem-solving and designing challenges that encourage communication, teamwork, and discovery.
Luke has been designing games and interactive systems for eight years. His experience includes designing Minecraft minigames, story-based challenge sequences, and custom puzzle environments that combine logic, strategy, and replayability. As a student, he built a 42-level arcade-style game in Python, complete with a level editor and multiple original gameplay mechanics. He has spent several years designing and playtesting original tabletop game ideas, including a card-based strategy game that uses positional mechanics and extensive balance testing to reduce luck and strengthen player agency. He has also created more than 800 Desmos graphs exploring visual designs, mathematical models, and physics-based simulations, reflecting sustained creative experimentation and a strong ability to turn abstract ideas into working interactive systems.
Within Second Haven, Luke’s work supports the development of engaging group experiences that are both challenging and accessible. He has designed puzzle systems using Minecraft command blocks, redstone logic, and in-game mechanics, and he brings a strong instinct for balancing difficulty, usability, and player satisfaction. His approach emphasizes experiences that are not only clever, but socially meaningful, including mechanics that require players to coordinate, communicate, and contribute in distinct ways.
In addition to game design, Luke brings technical skills in programming and interface design, including Python, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, JSON, and YAML, along with experience in full-stack web development. Across his work, he is especially drawn to building structured, interactive systems that turn abstract logic into playful, collaborative experiences.
Luke is an active participant in the Second Haven under the usernames LuckyLuke and Lightcomet.
Nova Norman
Narrative Designer
Nova is an artist and storyteller with a gift for creating rich, immersive worlds that invite people to explore, imagine, and connect. They bring more than ten years of experience writing both short stories and longer-form sagas, with particular strength in character development, queer experiences, emotional nuance, and the creation of layered lore. Their creative influences include sandbox and open-world games such as Genshin Impact, where distinct characters, evolving backstories, and richly imagined environments work together to create a compelling sense of place.
In addition to writing, Nova has spent many years producing detailed digital art, including character studies that bring their original stories to life, as well as cosmetic and costume design. For Second Haven, Nova contributes as a story and worldbuilding collaborator, helping shape characters, themes, lore, and the imaginative foundations of quests and shared experiences. Their creative input helps make Second Haven’s worlds more cohesive, inclusive, emotionally engaging, and memorable.
Nova also brings experience supporting children and tweens in youth-serving out-of-school-time (OST) programs. For two years, they helped young people learn to regulate difficult emotions, express feelings in healthy ways, build calming strategies, and manage attention-related challenges. Their approach is grounded in patience, emotional availability, and a practical understanding of how to support children in moments of stress or dysregulation. This experience strengthens Nova’s contributions to Second Haven by grounding their creative work in real sensitivity to how young people feel, connect, and respond.
