Damon was elected as mayor of Carrboro in 2021 after serving more than 8 years as a member of the Town Council.
Town Advisory Boards and Commissions
- Board of Adjustment (council liaison)
- Community Safety Task Force (council liaison)
- Greenways Commission (council liaison)
- Transportation Advisory Board (council liaison)
- Youth Advisory Board (council liaison)
Other Local and Regional Bodies
- Chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Directors
- Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Strategic Plan 2027 Steering Committee
- Chapel Hill Public Transit Committee (“Transit Partners Committee”)
- Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization (DCHC MPO) Board
- North Carolina Metropolitan Mayors Coalition
- Orange County 2022-2027 Master Aging Plan Steering Committee
- Orange County Solid Waste Advisory Group
- Orange County Visitors Bureau Board of Directors
- Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Reduction Working Group, North Carolina Clean Transportation Plan, North Carolina Department of Transportation
More About Damon
During his time as a council member, Damon served as a member of the Orange County Family Success Alliance Advisory Council, the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership and Executive Teams, and the Joint Orange-Chatham Community Action Board of Directors, and as the Town Council’s liaison to the Planning Board, the Transportation Advisory Board, and the Safe Routes to School Implementation Committee.
Before joining the Town Council, Damon had several years of experience in town and county government. He was twice elected chair of the Carrboro Planning Board, making recommendations to the Town Council on development and land use policy throughout the community. He also served on the town’s Greenways Commission.
Damon also represented Carrboro as the chair of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, advising the county’s Board of Commissioners on social justice considerations in such wide-ranging issues as fair housing, emergency preparedness and response, civil liberties, employment benefits, and marriage equality. He attended the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s National Fair Housing Training Academy Orientation in Washington, DC, with county staff in 2004, and he represented the commission at the North Carolina LGBT Statewide Leadership Summit in Greensboro in 2005.
In other volunteer work, Damon served on the board of directors of the Carolina Abortion Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides grants to low-income North Carolinians who have chosen to have an abortion but cannot afford the whole cost. He frequently volunteers for the North Carolina AIDS Action Network and received the organization’s Advocate of the Year Award in 2017. He is a member of the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition, which is working in coordination with the Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, Alabama, on a multiyear project to recognize local and national histories of racial terror lynching and the ongoing legacy of slavery.
In his professional life, Damon works in the medical school at Duke University, where he is a communications specialist with a focus on the work of health services researchers, population health scientists, and public health researchers who study the quality, costs, and ethics of health care delivery. He has coauthored papers on medical decision making, conflicts of interest in clinical research, and racial, ethnic, and gender differences in access to health care.
As a volunteer in the Duke community, Damon was a longtime leader of the Duke LGBT Task Force, which works closely with students, employees, alumni/ae, and administrators to promote equality and inclusion for gender and sexual minority communities on campus and in the health system. He received the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award from Duke’s Office for Institutional Equity in 2006, and he received the Outstanding Staff Award from the Center for LGBT Life (now the Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity) in 2008.
A native of Texas, Damon was born in the Rio Grande Valley and grew up in Austin. He went to college and graduate school in Washington, DC, before moving to Carrboro.
E-mail: dseils@townofcarrboro.org
Twitter: @damonseils
Facebook: fb.com/damonseilscarrboro
Instagram: instagram.com/damonseils