Kayton Stewart

Kayton Stewart is originally from Blacksburg, Virginia and attended the University of Virginia. When she’s not in class, she does her best to spend time outside hiking, doing yoga, or cooking something extremely spicy. Kayton also has a specialty in thrifting, whenever she needs a fun outing or the opportunity to do something expressive. Being the oldest of four siblings, she loves spending time with her siblings and often travels together and enjoys exploring new cultures and communities. There isn’t a food she won’t try or a place she won’t go. She feels most at home in the mountains or surrounded by plants, but is also known to drink tea and read a book on a rainy night.

Kayton’s primary focus is cultural environmentalism, and how that extends to the housing sector, urban development, and historic preservation. Recognizing and interpreting the intersections of the built and natural environments and how characteristics such as race, gender, class, religion, etc, play a role in economic and cultural development. She also resonates heavily with conservation and sustainable inquiry as baselines for her education and creating equitable lifestyles and have written papers to that effect. Finding ways to balance environmental conservation and historic preservation while also leaving room for economic development would be her dream role, although a potentially challenging space to navigate.