Nicol Turner Lee

Nicol Turner Lee is a senior fellow in Governance Studies, the director of the Center for Technology Innovation (CTI), and serves as co-editor-in-chief of the TechTank blog and podcast. Her research focuses on the intersection between technology and social justice in areas that range from universal access to communications to the design and application of artificial intelligence models. In 2023, Turner Lee developed and launched the AI Equity Lab, which is focused on advancing inclusive, ethical, nondiscriminatory, and democratized AI models and systems throughout the United States, and the Global South, including the African Union, India, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

Alongside her plethora of publications, Turner Lee released her first, signature book Digitally invisible: How the internet is creating the new underclass (2024), which advances a roadmap toward a more just, digital society and economy. She also recently published a chapter in The Oxford Handbook on AI Governance (2022), among other notable publications.

She has been a contributor to the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Politico, Communications Daily, National Journal, The Hill, among others. She has been seen and heard on PBS Newshour, National Public Radio, NBC, ABC, and other major and multicultural and independent media outlets and podcasts. Nicol is also a regularly sought out speaker, and panelist on congressional, state, and local hearings on existing and next generation technologies.

She sits on various federal advisory commissions some of which include the Technology Advisory Committee on the U.S., Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), NYDFS Financial Innovation Advisory Board, the AI Safety Board convened by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Communications Commission’s Communications, Equity, and Diversity Council (CEDC) of which she is the current Vice Chair. She is also an active Board Member on the Federal Communications Bar Association Foundation, and the Partnership on AI, which is a global organization committed to ethical and safe AI. In addition to these roles, she is also a member of the Observatory on Information and Democracy and has actively participated in various global discussions on universal connectivity and responsible future technologies. In 2023, she also completed service on the National Academies of Science research commission on the use of facial recognition technologies in policing as per an executive order from the Biden-Harris administration.

Prior to Brookings, Turner Lee was chief research and policy officer at the Multicultural Media, Telecom, and Internet Council (MMTC), and the first director of the Media and Technology Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. In the latter role, she developed the first national minority broadband adoption study, which was later cited in the congressionally mandated Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan. In 2022, Turner Lee was recognized with the Distinguished Career Award in the practice of sociology by the American Sociological Association, which adds to other notable recognitions, including being named to the list of the top 100 Women in AI Ethics and given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Nicol graduated from Colgate University magna cum laude and has a M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University. She also holds a certificate in nonprofit management from the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Read Nicol Turner Lee’s photo essay, “From Rural Digital Divides to Local Solutions” »

Read Nicol Turner Lee’s photo essay, “Closing the digital and economic divides in rural America” »