Alyssa Canty attended The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a Bachelor of Arts in public policy and in women studies. After undergrad Alyssa attended Salem College where she received a certificate in Non-Profit Management and then continued her studies at North Carolina Central University for graduate school. She graduated Cum Laude with a Master of Public Administration in 2014. 

During her academic career she did research on education, gender and racial inequalities, institutional disadvantages, and minority populations. She presented research at the 2014 North Carolina Central University Spring Research Symposium and won first place in the category of Graduate Student Research in the College of Behavioral and Life Sciences for her research titled “Utilizing Policy to Dismantle Poverty”. 

Alyssa begun working at Common Cause in 2015 as the HBCU Campus Outreach Coordinator for Common Cause NC. She led civic engagement efforts at five of North Carolina’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In 2019, Alyssa transitioned into a Common Cause national role to help expand the NC program into other states. Currently, Alyssa is the director of youth programs at Common Cause and oversees the HBCU outreach program in Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, and Virginia and supports the North Carolina program and the Common Cause internship program. 

While at Common Cause she was a 2019 Yes! Weekly’s Persons of the Year, she was one of MTVs 2019 Leaders for Change, and she was recognized by Forbes during Women’s History Month in 2019 as a woman who made a difference during the 2018 election. At Common Cause she transitioned Common Cause to only offering paid internships, got the governing board to approve Common Cause supporting lowering the voting age to 16, and expanded the HBCU Democracy Fellowship to include more fellows and states. Alyssa also serves as the North Carolina chapter director for New Leaders Council.