Charmaine Runes
GRANTEE
Charmaine Runes is WBEZ’s data visuals reporter. She analyzes data and designs visualizations that contextualize stories and empower people.
Prior to moving to Chicago, Runes was a public policy researcher at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., where she focused on the 2020 census and the implications of a potential miscount; the implementation and impact of multi-generational anti-poverty interventions; and structural racism in policy, research, and evaluation.
She has produced and presented data visualizations at multiple conferences, including the 2016 White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders data convening. More recently, Runes served as South Side Weekly’s director of fact-checking. On the side, she reported and developed several data visualizations for the Weekly.
