Jun 08, 2026

The Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation has selected Kayla Sparks, an entering student in the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment’s Historic Preservation Program, as one of four inaugural recipients of theJenrette Historic Preservation Fellowship for the 2026–2027 academic year.

Sparks comes to Pratt as a summa cum laude graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design with a minor in Architecture and Architectural History. Her work sits at the intersection of historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and community-centered design. Her undergraduate capstone project, Reroot Savannah: A Community Access Hub, proposed transforming a disused grocery store in a disinvested Savannah neighborhood into a multifunctional community hub — integrating retail food access, a food bank, a community garden, childcare, and a learning center to address food insecurity and its associated stigma. Grounded in the history of a previously vibrant neighborhood, the project asks how the qualities of what once existed might be thoughtfully recovered through design.

Before joining Pratt, Sparks worked as a design intern at LS3P, where she conducted historical research and engaged community stakeholders in the redevelopment of a community anchor middle school, weaving historical narratives into design strategy while preserving the site’s cultural and architectural character. She also gained residential interior design experience as a design intern at Bardi Designs. She hopes to build a career focused on the adaptive reuse of historic structures through community-centered approaches to pressing social challenges.

Established by the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation following its 2025 State of Historic Preservation Education Convening, the Jenrette Fellows Program is a two-year fellowship that provides graduate students with partial scholarship funding, hands-on learning experiences, and cross-institutional professional connections. Fellows participate in a field school, attend national preservation conferences, complete a summer internship, and take part in networking activities with preservation leaders and peers from across the country. Pratt Institute is among eleven institutions selected by the Foundation to nominate candidates for the fellowship based on curriculum, student achievement, and geography.

Congratulations, Kayla — we look forward to the contributions you will make to the field of historic preservation.