Charles is a higher education researcher interested in the areas of college access and success of underrepresented and historically excluded students.

Most recently, he served as a research associate for the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government where he conducted descriptive and inferential research to measure and contextualize outcomes of the nursing student pipeline within the University System of Georgia. Previously, he served as associate study director for several nationally representative longitudinal sample studies of high school students, at the National Center for Education Statistics. His prior experience also includes research roles at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, as well as the American Council on Education, and for college access organizations including the Georgia College Advising Corps. In each role he worked with collaborative teams to distill complex education issues, data, and research, for technical and non-technical audiences.