Kayla M. Smith is committed to serving as a global change agent through community building
rooted in storytelling and cultural art exchanges. Born and raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Kayla is a graduating senior International Studies major with a concentration in Diplomacy at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. She has studied abroad in Antigua and Barbuda for six months and in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, in which she discovered her passion for gaining proximity to truths through an arts lens rooted in research, writing, and civic engagement. Kayla has continued to put the arts in conversation with diplomacy through her academic endeavors, campus involvement, and community service. At Spelman, Kayla was an active member of the Ethel Waddell Githii Honors program, tutored in the Spelman Writing Center, and served as a Social Justice Fellow. She is the founder and director of Spelman College’s first podcast, The Blue Record. As her social justice initiative, The Blue Record podcast is a product of Kayla and her team’s commitment to justice work, storytelling, and critiquing counterproductive discourses
that interrupt the mobility of Black women in society. Kayla is also a proud member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society of International Scholars. Upon her graduation from Spelman College, Kayla will intern in the Office of Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20) for the summer. She begins her graduate studies at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to obtain her M.A. in International Relations in the Fall. When she is not working or studying, Kayla enjoys reading, listening to podcasts, and spending time with her loved ones.