kATYA GURYEVA
As the youngest member of the expedition, Katya has recently started her career as an intern at C40 Cities, an international network that provides cities with the resources to combat climate change. She graduated from UCL in the summer of 2022, having specialised in Urban Planning, Danish, and Spanish with the aim of working in international urban climate action. As part of her degree, Katya spent a year at the University of Copenhagen studying Landscape Architecture and Urbanism. She has also done research in Yerevan, Armenia, on the potential for blue and green infrastructure to support local urban resilience.
Prior to moving to London for university, Katya spent two years at United World Colleges Dilijan in Armenia, one of several UWC schools around the world that endeavours to promote peace and sustainability through education, where she was given the award of Davis Mahindra Scholar Laureate. There, Katya co-founded Caucasus Connect, an arts camp to support friendships between youth from countries in the Caucasus with historically troubled relations. Upon leaving Armenia, she founded ‘The Inclusive Education Project’ at the age of 19, a fundraising campaign that supported Kovcheg, a school leading the fight for access to education for children with physical and cognitive disabilities in Russia.
Katya is used to packing her life into a suitcase (or two), and is always in search of new adventures. Having lived in 5 countries and as an avid linguist, if she could have one superpower it would be to speak every language! In her free time, she can usually be found training for a mountain race or making music. In 2021, Katya was awarded a Danish grant to release her debut EP, and hopes to continue writing and producing music in the future.
She strongly believes in the power of collective action and working together across cultural and geographic divides, and brings this sentiment to her work, her personal projects, and now to the Expedition as well.