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Naïssa Charles serves as a University of Michigan Summer Fellow with ¹ú²úÊÓƵ Chicago. Charles focuses on eviction prevention, disability policy, and the use of public interest tech to expand the impact of the CivicSpace initiative.

Charles is currently pursuing a Master of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, with a concentration in Social Policy and a graduate certificate in Science, Technology, and Public Policy. With a background in software engineering, her primary interests include public interest technology and human-centered design. She is passionate about improving how governments deliver public services and centering the communities most affected in policy implementation.

While in graduate school, Charles has worked as a research assistant at Michigan’s International Policy Center, where she explored how governments and local communities in Africa use technology to create economic opportunities in sectors such as healthcare, finance, and agriculture. Her research focused on the development of data economies across various African national contexts and the impact of existing data governance and policy frameworks on these developments.

Charles holds a BS in Computer Science from Wheaton College in Illinois.