Jamya Cherelle Davis
Team Lead, Still We R.O.S.E (Recognizing Our Shared Experiences); Youth Advisory Council Member, UP End Hate
2026
Jamya Davis, born and raised in Orlando, Florida, is a community engagement and evaluation professional currently working at Trailnet, a St. Louis-based nonprofit advancing safer, more equitable walking, biking, and public transit infrastructure. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, with double minors in History and Public Health, from thee illustrious Xavier University of Louisiana.
Davis’s commitment to building safe, equitable communities took root long before her professional career. As an undergraduate, she was Team Lead of an award winning initiative – Still We R.O.S.E. (Recognizing Our Shared Experiences) – and served as a Youth Advisory Council member for the Up End Hate website. Both were formative experiences that sparked a lasting passion for youth engagement, activism, and the creation of safe spaces for young people to grow, organize, and be heard. That early work shaped the throughline of everything she has pursued since: bridging communities in need with equitable, applicable resources, and ensuring the people closest to a problem have a voice in solving it.
Davis has built experience in public policy and civic leadership, including an internship at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, participation in the inaugural cohort of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Public Policy and International Affairs Program, and a fellowship with the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs, where she sharpened her ability to lead with steadiness through uncertainty. She now holds a role as Program Manager at Legacy Institute STL, a youth and family focused St. Louis based nonprofit, in addition to her role at Trailnet, where she continues to center community voice, in the work of building safer, more connected neighborhoods.
At the Eradicate Hate Global Summit, Davis draws on this full arc — from youth advisory work confronting hate at its roots, to community-facing public health and transit work today — to speak to why investing in young people, and in the spaces where they feel safe enough to show up fully, is foundational to building communities free of hate.
Outside of work, Jamya is a new cat mom to a beautiful orange kitty (named Jupiter), an avid hiker, and enjoys tending to her plants and spending time with friends and family.
The effort to eradicate hate requires the active participation of every component of our society, to include governments, the private sector, communities of faith and indeed every aspect of civil society. There is no more urgent task in front of us. The organizers of the Eradicate Hate Global Summit are doing the United States and the world an enormous service by tackling hatred and extremism with a focus on honest dialogue and conversation, genuine learning and practical solutions. This will not happen overnight, but the Pittsburgh community’s leadership in this effort is genuinely inspiring and motivating.
