K. Preston Cory

A native of the verdant Southeast, Preston grew up in a river town exploring the natural wonders of her home state of Kentucky. She became acquainted with the importance of land conservation at a young age, often attending hearings with her mother, who served as president of a Kentucky-based land trust for many years.

Preston spent her formative years exploring the Appalachian Mountains, including rock climbing, backpacking, and paddling. During her college years, she worked as a mountaineering counselor at an all-girls camp where she taught orienteering, the ethics of leave-no-trace, and basic wilderness survival skills. She also led climbing, caving, and backpacking trips along the Appalachian Trail and in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is no coincidence that Preston decided to attend college in the Shenandoah Valley, which has left an indelible mark on her. One of the first classes she took in college was Wilderness in American Literature, which sparked her lifelong appreciation for the Transcendentalist literary movement and the confluence of nature and great American writing.

Preston started her career on Capitol Hill working in the House of Representatives. One of her proudest achievements was drafting and ushering into a law a bill to transfer the James K. Polk Presidential Home in Columbia, Tennessee, to the purview of the National Park Service. She later worked as an energy and environment Legislative Assistant in the U.S. Senate and a policy analyst in the U.S. EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. Most recently, she spent two years in London advising institutional investors and climate tech startups on climate and energy policy.

Preston earned her B.A. in Global Politics from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and her M.Sc. in Russian and Eurasian Political Economy and Energy from King’s College London.

In her leisure time, you can find her writing, running along the Potomac River, or searching for seasonal produce to fuel her passion for cooking.