Our mission


We use population-level data to answer the question:

Where is North Carolina heading?

Carolina Demography is made up of demographic researchers, evaluators, spatial analysts, coders, designers, and storytellers. Together, we provide people with the data and analysis they need to make sense of population-level changes.

Collectively, we have decades of experience making population estimates and forecasts, analyzing population-level and economic trends, and communicating that data back out into the world in a way that’s easy to understand and act upon. Our work informs decision-making, evaluation, and policy across North Carolina, where we serve organizations and people in all 100 counties.

Our story


We are fortunate to be housed within the Carolina Population Center (CPC), one of the oldest and most distinguished population centers in the country. It was Paul Voss, then the interim director of CPC, who proposed building an applied demography unit within the center in 2012. Modeled after the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the vision for Carolina Demography was to help people and organizations across NC better understand the dynamic and rapidly changing state. UNC’s Office of Research provided seed money to fund the research consulting unit for six months.

Rebecca Tippett, Carolina Demography’s founding director, joined CPC in 2013. Working closely with CPC’s leadership, she began meeting with local and state government officials, businesses, non-for-profit organizations, and people across the state to understand what questions they had about their rapidly changing population. Early projects included population projections and delivering presentations on migration patterns across NC.

Today, Carolina Demography continues to take on projects that help people better understand the implications of demographic change across the state of NC.

A map of North Carolina counties that Carolina Demography has worked in.

We know North Carolina.
In addition to our broad, statewide projects that surface information from every NC county, we have directly worked in 76 counties across North Carolina.

Carolina Demography Alumni


Joanne Brosh, Ph.D.

Jessica Choi

Jane Fruehwirth, Ph.D.

Thomas Gomes, M.P.A.

Wei Gu, M.A.

Elliot Kent, Ph.D.

Elizabeth Ordoñez

Jessica Stanford

Rebecca Tippett, Ph.D.

For press


For press inquiries, email demography@unc.edu with your topic and deadline.

We check the inbox daily and will respond promptly.

Contact us »

Media services

Carolina Demography offers assistance to journalists working with Census data and other datasets. Our staff can:

  • Answer questions about population-level datasets. Contact us at demography@unc.edu.
  • Create fact sheets and news releases based on Census Bureau datasets.
  • Provide interviews on topics related to demographic trends in North Carolina.
  • Publish newsletters and blog posts about North Carolina and demography.
  • Assist you in locating relevant datasets and finding the information you need.

Media highlights


myFutureNC releases latest county attainment profiles

The Growing Impact and Influence of Latinos on the Charlotte Area

Pandemic spurs huge home school boom, but will it last?

Baby boom forecast busts in North Carolina

‘Migration’ fuels growth in Currituck, Dare counties


View all media highlights

Want to learn more?

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Featured projects


Your support is critical to our mission of measuring, understanding, and predicting population change and its impact. Donate to Carolina Demography today.