Peyton Smith ’26
Food Systems & Global Change Research Assistant
- Project: Inequities in the food system
- Major: Environment and Sustainability
- Graduation year: 2026
- Contact Peyton at prs243 [at] cornell.edu (prs243[at]cornell[dot]edu)
About
I got my start doing research working as a native bee researcher in an area of Virginia that had never been surveyed before because of it's overwhelming low income population. When I started the research many of the researchers suggested that I do not talk to any local people from the area and instead attempted to give me areas to find bees despite only being to the area a few times. However, once I started doing research, I quickly realized that many of the people from the area provided a valuable resource on where native flowers were located and where they had seen bees before. This experience opened my eyes to how inequitable research can be and how important it is to involve local communities.
I want to go into environmental law and focus specifically on the use of illegal fertilizers and pesticides and their impacts on the environment.