Kenton is a social scientist with a longstanding interest in the intersection of environmental politics and human cognition. He was part of the first efforts to draw on cognitive linguistics to understand social change, political discourse, and environmental debates (which popularized constructs such as frames, conceptual metaphors, prototypes, and narratives). He obtained a PhD in cognitive development and education from UC Berkeley, where he pursued a research program that places sociocultural processes (such as technological mediation) at the center of human mental life. His scholarly work — original empirical research conducted in settings ranging from urban classrooms to the mountains of Papua New Guinea — has appeared in journals such as Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Human Development, and Journal of Cognition and Culture.

Kenton is a citizen of US, Canada, and France, and loves the outdoors, linguistics, beatboxing, elegant research methodologies, and talking about superheroes with his son. Follow Kenton on Twitter @KdeKirby.