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 The TechTank 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. Turner Lee is also a regularly sought out speaker, and panelist for congressional, state, and local hearings on existing and next generation technologies.