Preston Stewart

Preston Stewart recently served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Viet Nam from 2022 to 2024. As a TEFL Volunteer, Preston was assigned to live in a community outside central Hanoi, learning about the public education system in Viet Nam while working alongside local counterparts to adapt the English language curriculum into lessons promoting communicative language learning. Preston took on a leadership role within his cohort, building relations with local authorities and coordinating with Peace Corps staff on national-level negotiations to promote Volunteer wellbeing and community integration.

Prior to serving in the Peace Corps, Preston graduated from Harvard College in 2022 with a B.A. in Government cum laude and a secondary in Global Health and Health Policy. His senior thesis focused on Cambodia's foreign relations, namely those with China, the US, and Viet Nam, in the years following the Khmer Rouge genocide. The thesis sought to understand Cambodia's anti-US push and parallel authoritarian backsliding in the late 2010s through an analysis of historical sources and interviews for current perspectives. While an undergraduate, Preston was also involved in numerous volunteer organizations serving low-income communities and promoting civics.

At Georgetown, Preston will fashion his previous experience with and studies of regions recovering from conflict into takeaways that can inform future development in conflict-affected areas. In particular, Preston is interested in studying revenue generation for funding humanitarian and development initiatives, the effects of national identity-building on development cooperation, and localized approaches to humanitarian response.