Anita Brown-Graham Named Lifetime Champion for Fighting Poverty

Anita Brown-Graham

This year faculty member and director of ncIMPACT Anita Brown-Graham was named a Lifetime Champion by the North Carolina Justice Center. The Justice Center presents its Defender of Justice Awards annually to honor individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions in combatting poverty. The Justice Center will recognize Brown-Graham and ten other individuals at a ceremony and dinner on June 8.

Brown-Graham was faculty at the UNC School of Government from 1994 to 2007, after which she became director of the Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI) at NC State University. At IEI, she designed and led the construction of a first-of-its-kind civic engagement space, the Emerging Issues Commons, in the James B. Hunt Jr. Library. Brown-Graham rejoined the School of Government in 2016 to lead ncIMPACT, which conducts nonpartisan research, data, and analysis to inform policy makers.

In 2014, the Triangle Business Journal named her a Woman in Business for her policy leadership in the state and named her 2017 CEO of the Year for her work as director of the Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI). In 2013, she was honored by the White House as a “Champion of Change for Civic Engagement and Open Government.” Brown-Graham also is a William C. Friday Fellow, American Marshall Fellow, and Eisenhower Fellow.