Charity Freeman is the Senior Director of the Illinois Broadband Lab at the University of Illinois System, where she oversees efforts to expand and improve broadband infrastructure across the state, with the goal of ensuring universal access to reliable and scalable internet services for all Illinoisans. A former high school computer science teacher within the Chicago Public School district and Past Chair of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), she brings deep expertise in digital literacy, technology integration, learning design, and education policy to her role.

Charity leads and advises multiple statewide and national initiatives focused on CS education across K-12 classrooms, higher education, research, and workplace settings. She serves as K-12 CS Education Advisor of the NSF INVITE AI Institute and leads the Expanding Computing Education Pathways (ECEP) Illinois team. She has also co-chaired a statewide working group on scaling equitable CS education as a governor-appointed member of the Illinois P-20 Council and served as Special Advisor to the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative (IWERC) and its research portfolio on improving equitable access and outcomes in CS education. Charity delivered a keynote speech on “Teaching Inclusive AI in CS Classrooms” at the White House’s CS Education Week 2023 celebration.

With a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in educational policy—both earned as an adult learner—Charity is currently pursuing her PhD in Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include improving teaching and learning through educational technology and AI, broadening participation in computing among historically minoritized groups, and leveraging storytelling and empathy to drive systems-level change.