Nicol Turner Lee

Dr. Nicol Turner Lee is a senior fellow in Governance Studies, the Director of the Center for Technology Innovation, and serves as Co-Editor-In-Chief of TechTank at the Brookings Institute. Dr. Turner Lee researches public policy designed to enable equitable access to technology across the U.S. and to harness its power to create change in communities across the world. Her work also explores global and domestic broadband deployment and internet governance issues. She is an expert on the intersection of race, wealth, and technology within the context of civic engagement, criminal justice, and economic development. She has a forthcoming book on the topic, Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New Underclass (Brookings Press, 2021).

Dr. Turner Lee comes to Brookings from the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), a national non-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving equal opportunity and civil rights in the mass media, telecommunications, and broadband industries. Prior to joining MMTC, Dr. Turner Lee was vice president and the first director of the Media and Technology Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the nation’s leading think tank on issues related to African Americans and other people of color.

Dr. Turner Lee 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. Dr. Turner-Lee also serves as a Vice Chair of the Federal Communications Commission’s Communications Equity and Diversity Council.