Allen Buansi grew up in North Carolina. He graduated from Dartmouth College (B.A.) and the University of North Carolina School of Law (J.D.). From 2017 to 2021, he worked at the UNC Center for Civil Rights and was the deputy director there, working in the areas of public education, environmental justice and land use law. He is now Of Counsel, working in local government law at Poyner Spruill. 

After being elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council in 2017, Governor Roy Cooper appointed him to the statewide Local Government Employees Retirement Board of Trustees, and there, he served from 2018 until 2021. In his time on the Town Council, he spearheaded a few initiatives with colleagues to create the Town’s first poet laureate program and the first criminal justice debt program. He was elected to the North Carolina State House in 2022, and he represents District 56 (Orange County) in the North Carolina General Assembly. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife and their three children.