Todd is the senior director of public affairs at the NC Rural Center, overseeing the Center’s branding and external communications efforts.
He previously worked as the director of policy and research at EducationNC, an organization providing nonpartisan education research, data, news, and analysis. Prior to joining EducationNC, he worked at MDC, a Durham-based nonprofit that conducts research and develops programs to promote economic opportunity in the American South.
Todd has also worked extensively as an independent consultant and freelance researcher for various organizations throughout the state. He was part of the research and writing team that received the Governmental Research Association’s 2014 Most Distinguished Research Award for a report on the use of telemedicine in rural areas. He was a co-author of How the Triangle Gives Back, a 2008 report that examined local philanthropic and charitable giving in the Research Triangle region. He has authored research reports on a variety of other topics, such as long-term care spending for senior adults and state water conservation practices. His writing and research has appeared in The Daily Yonder; Insight, a publication of the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research; and NC DataNet, a publication of The Program on Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Todd is an adjunct instructor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government. He previously taught religious studies at Randolph Community College through the school’s distance education program.
Todd attended Randolph Community College before transferring to UNC-Chapel Hill, where he received his undergraduate degree. He has a master’s in journalism and mass communication from UNC-Chapel Hill and a master’s in theological studies from Duke University.
In his free time, he tries to spend as much time as possible with his wife and three children. When there is an extra second in the day, he likes to work on a pretty awful fly cast and daydream about the biography he is going to write on George Berkeley.