Jessica Anderson (mayor)

Jessica Cooper Anderson (born 1978) is an American public policy analyst serving as the mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, since December 18, 2023. She previously served on the Chapel Hill Town Council for eight years and has worked in the public policy department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2022. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

Education and professional career
Anderson received her bachelor's degree in journalism at Northeastern University and earned her Master of Public Policy in social policy from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She moved to Chapel Hill around 2010. She used to be a senior policy analyst at the SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, assessing school districts in North Carolina and advising communities nationally on efforts to combat youth homelessness. She became a professor of the practice in the public policy department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022.

Political career
Anderson served two four-year terms on the Chapel Hill Town Council from 2015 to 2023. In her first election in 2015, she was endorsed by the new political action committee Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town (CHALT) and received the most votes of any council candidate. She served as mayor pro tempore from 2017 to 2019 and was reelected to the council in 2019, again as the top vote getter. She led the town to hire its first urban designer and adopt a "Complete Community" framework, proposed by urban planner Jennifer Keesmaat, meant to promote sustainable development and affordable housing.

Anderson announced her mayoral candidacy in July 2023. She was endorsed by outgoing mayor Pam Hemminger, most of the incumbent town council, the Sierra Club, Indy Week, and the local advocacy group NEXT. As in past years, this election cycle—the most expensive in town history—was marked by disagreement over the direction of development. Opponent Adam Searing, a fellow council member, ran alongside a slate of council candidates opposed to the Complete Community strategy. Anderson won the November election with 7,092 votes (59%) to 4,943 (41%), and candidates aligned with her won three of the four open council seats.

Anderson was sworn in as mayor on December 18, 2023.

Personal life
Anderson is married to Karthik Shyam, a communications strategist, and has two children.