Anise is the Assistant Director of the City of Durham, North Carolina’s newly established Community Safety Department. Their first major charge: establishing four 911 response programs that will divert 911 calls away from law enforcement and to clinicians, peer support specialists, and EMTs. Prior to that he was the Chief Data Officer/Assistant Director. He is also doing a PhD in City/Urban, Community and Regional Planning at UNC Chapel Hill. His focus is on issues at the intersection of critical race frameworks, equity, and discourse. His novel, Hush Harbor, is about a resistance group that takes America’s racial reckoning into its own hands after the murder of an innocent Black teen at the hands of police. The book was bought by HarperCollins and has been optioned by Disney’s Onyx Collective. He previously worked as Senior Manager of Research in Race & Equity at the Boston Foundation, and he completed his MFA in Creative Writing

at Rutgers University. Anise is a 2012 Mitchell Scholar. He received an MPhil in Human Geography from Queen's University, Belfast. Anise's thesis examined the reality of post conflict Belfast. He mapped areas

of violence and division in the city and investigated whether or not these divisions were being perpetuated. Anise worked with the Cathedral Quarter Steering group, a collaboration between several organizations focused on economic revitalization of the area. Anise obtained his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth.