David Carroll, Ph.D., Director
David Carroll leads the Center's initiative on developing standards and best practices in international election observation and has managed or participated in more than 20 Carter Center projects to strengthen democracy and electoral processes.

Dr. Carroll joined The Carter Center in 1991 as assistant director of the Latin American and Caribbean Program and since 2003 has directed the Democracy Program. He received his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of South Carolina, has published articles and book chapters on development and democratization, and has taught at Georgia State University and the University of the South.

David Pottie, Ph.D., Associate Director
David Pottie has worked on election and democracy projects for The Carter Center since 2002 in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.  Dr. Pottie was born in Ottawa, Canada, and he received his doctorate in political science from York University in Toronto.

Prior to joining the Center, he lived in South Africa for seven years, where he completed research for his doctoral dissertation on housing for the poor.  He was a faculty member at Rhodes University, and in 1999 he joined the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, a nongovernmental organization based in Johannesburg, where he became the head of research.  He has served on the editorial board of Southern Africa Report and the Journal of African Elections and has published work on African politics, democracy, and development issues.

Sarah K. Johnson, Assistant Director
Sarah Johnson is assistant director of the Democracy Program, where she helps implement democracy-strengthening programs around the world, including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and other regions. In previous roles, she designed, implemented, and managed democracy and governance programming in Morocco and the Occupied Palestinian Territory and has professional experience working on political party building, communications, women's political participation, and public opinion research across the MENA region, Europe, and the United States.

Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Johnson served as a resident country director for the Middle East/North Africa division of the International Republican Institute and was a senior analyst for Greenberg Quinlin Rosner. She is an expert on political outreach and survey research. Ms. Johnson holds a Master of Science degree in foreign service from Georgetown University and a master's degree in European sciences from the Humboldt and Frei universities in Berlin, Germany.

Avery Davis-Roberts, Assistant Director
Avery Davis-Roberts joined The Carter Center in 2003. She currently manages the Center's Democratic Election Standards Project, which seeks to develop the criteria by which observers assess a democratic process. She supported the Center's collaborative effort with the National Democratic Institute and the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division on principles for international election observation and has worked on Carter Center election observation missions in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East.  Before joining the Center, Ms. Davis-Roberts was a research consultant in London. She gained a joint honors bachelor's degree in Arabic and law and a Master of Laws degree (LL.M.) in international human rights law, both from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Brett Lacy, Assistant Director
Brett Lacy has worked on election observation and democratic governance projects since 1999 in more than a dozen countries.  Before returning to The Carter Center in 2010, she managed  civil society, political party, conflict mitigation, media, women's participation, and legislative-strengthening programs for the National Democratic Institute in West Africa. She has also worked with International Foundation for Electoral Systems, International IDEA, and the International Organization for Migration to contribute to the development of standards for the participation of refugees and internally displaced persons in post-conflict elections.

Ms. Lacy previously served at The Carter Center from 2000 – 2003, where she contributed to programming in Timor-Leste, Nicaragua, Guyana, and Zambia as well as the Center's Democratic Election Standards program as an assistant program coordinator.  She earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Duke University and a master's degree in international administration from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies.

Chansi Powell, Program Associate
Chansi Powell is program associate for the Democracy Program's Democratic Election Standards Project, for which she has worked since 2010.  She has supported the project's work to develop election assessment criteria founded in international human rights.  Since working for the Center, Ms. Powell has assisted on election observation missions in Guinea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in addition to helping with Carter Center programming efforts in other countries.  Ms. Powell previously worked at the Ford Foundation for its Peace and Social Justice Unit.  She has interned with the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch and for the Federal Public Defender's office in Missouri and Illinois.  Ms. Powell was an intern with the Carter Center's Human Rights Program in 2009, helping conduct research on human rights violations in the DRC.

Ms. Powell obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Washington University in St. Louis, a master's degree in French language and civilization from New York University,  and a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in New York.

Tynesha Green, Program Assistant
Tynesha Green has been the Democracy Program's program assistant since 1997 and provides logistical and administrative support to the program and its election missions. She has served on Carter Center missions to Nigeria, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Mozambique, Guyana, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kenya.

She attended the University of California at Riverside, where she majored in economics with a minor in administrative studies. Ms. Green previously worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the asset disposition department.

Traci M. Boyd, Program Assistant
Traci Boyd joined the Democracy Program in 2011 and provides administrative support to the program and its election observation missions. She graduated from the University of Georgia, where she majored in family and consumer science with a minor in chemistry. Before joining The Carter Center, Ms. Boyd previously served as an operations analyst for the Georgia Department of Human Services and the Georgia Department of Education, an educator with the Chatham County School System, and a chemist with BP (formerly Amoco Fabrics & Fibers Division).