Brenda Jeanette Thiam (/ˈtʃəm/ cham; born September 9, 1969) is an American politician who was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from District 2B from 2020 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, she was the first African-American Republican woman to serve in the Maryland General Assembly. In 2024, she unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Maryland's 6th congressional district, losing to former state delegate Neil Parrott in the Republican primary election.

On April 30, 2025, Thiam announced that she would run for lieutenant governor of Maryland in the 2026 Maryland gubernatorial election on a ticket with John Myrick.

Brenda Jeanette Thiam was born and raised in Raeford, North Carolina on September 9, 1969. She was one of four children and was raised in a single-mother family after her father, a radio personality, filed for divorce and moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

Thiam graduated from Hoke County High School in 1987, and later attended North Carolina Central University in 1994, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education. She later attended the University of Maryland, College Park, earning a Master of Education degree in 2002; Capella University, where she earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in special-education leadership in 2015; and Pennsylvania State University, where she earned a graduate certificate in applied behavior management in 2017.

After graduating from North Carolina Central University, Thiam worked as a special-education teacher for Washington County Public Schools and for various nonprofits until 2019, While working for the Washington County Public Schools, she secured a $100,000 grant to support the ongoing education of teachers for students with intellectual disabilities. Thiam lost her job just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, after which she started her own nonprofit, Oasis Community Support Services Inc., to support the needs of adults with autism.

Thiam first got involved in politics as a member of student government in school. She was a registered Democrat until 2012, when she switched to the Republican Party. From 2016 to 2018, she served as the vice president of the Washington County Republican Club. In 2016, she applied to fill a vacancy on the Washington County Board of Commissioners, which was filled by Wayne Keefer, a small-business owner. In 2020, Thiam successfully ran for the Hagerstown City Council, placing sixth in the nonpartisan primary. Thiam later withdrew from the race after being appointed to the Maryland House of Delegates, but she remained on the ballot for the general election.

In September 2020, following the appointment of Paul D. Corderman to the Maryland Senate, Thiam applied to fill the vacancy left by his resignation in the Maryland House of Delegates. The Washington County Republican Central Committee nominated Thiam to fill the vacancy later that month, and she was appointed to the seat by Governor Larry Hogan on September 23, 2020.

Thiam was sworn into the Maryland House of Delegates on October 6, 2020, where she served on the House Judiciary Committee and was a member of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland. She was the first black Republican woman to serve in the Maryland General Assembly and the first black Republican to serve in the legislature in the nearly three decades since Aris T. Allen died in office in 1991. In 2022, Thiam was appointed deputy minority whip.