Noelle Davis

Noelle Davis is the technical director for Southern Shift, leading the web site development work as well as publishing content. Before joining the Southern Shift team Noelle was a Senior Consultant with Capitol City Solutions, a lobby and grassroots campaign firm that helps improve public policy in Texas. Since 2004 Noelle has lobbied and managed educational and advocacy oriented public policy campaigns at the state and federal level.

Most recently Noelle focused on legislative and public policy research and analysis, coalition building, coordinating and presenting issue briefings, and directly educating Texas Legislators and members of their staff about bills filed during the 2009 session of the Texas Legislature. Previously Noelle was the executive director and co-founder of Texans for Medical Marijuana (TMM), a grassroots organization working to change Texas law to protect rather than prosecute medical marijuana patients. Her work with TMM included consulting with legislators on bill language, organizing grassroots actions at the Texas Capitol, acting as a spokesperson with the media, and coordinating testimony for public hearings on legislation.

Background

Noelle grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she graduated from a satellite campus of Purdue University with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater in 1998. While studying theater at Purdue Noelle's emphasis was in acting and she had a blast performing in a variety of plays and musicals, honing her talent for performing with dialects and character voices, and studying and teaching ballet as well as dance and stage combat choreography.  

After graduating Noelle moved to New York City where she worked as a nanny, regularly went to auditions, and continued her training in dance, commercial and on camera acting. In July of 1999 Noelle moved to Memphis, TN were she spent a year working for a regional theater company as a performance and administrative intern.

Noelle then moved to Austin, TX in October of 2000 on the advice of a friend who offered her a place to stay so she could check out the city and see if it was a match. Noelle quickly fell in love with Austin and Texas and began to shift her focus from acting to activism.