After a career as a public affairs consultant in Washington, D.C., I co-founded The Kameny Papers Project which conserved and donated the papers of gay civil rights pioneer Dr. Franklin E. Kameny to the Library of Congress and The Smithsonian. Doing this, I realized how so much LGBT political history remains lost, sealed, often destroyed or deleted. I founded a new Mattachine Society of Washington to "rescue" that history, along with the reputations and stories of gays and lesbians who were targeted, destroyed--and sometimes prevailed. We call this "archive activism", and love it.

I live in Washington, D.C. and Homer, Alaska with my husband Stephen and our son. I also serve as a Trustee of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming; and on the Board of Advisors of the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington.

Nicholas Turner joined Vera as its fifth president and director in August, 2013. Prior to joining he was a managing director at The Rockefeller Foundation. Nick was previously vice president and chief program officer at Vera.
At the Rockefeller Foundation, Nick provided leadership and strategic direction on key initiatives, including transportation policy reform in the U.S. to promote social, economic, and environmental interests, and redevelopment in New Orleans to advance racial and socioeconomic integration. At Vera, Nick guided the expansion of Vera’s national work, launching and directing Vera’s state sentencing and corrections initiative and was responsible for the development and launch of the Prosecution and Racial Justice Program and the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons. Prior to his work with Vera, Nick was an associate in the litigation department of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York from 1997 to 1998. He was a judicial clerk for the Honorable Jack. B. Weinstein, Senior United States District Judge in Brooklyn from 1996 to 1997. Before attending law school, Nick worked with court-involved, homeless, and troubled young people at Sasha Bruce Youthwork, a Washington, DC youth services organization, from 1989 to 1993. He has published a number of articles on criminal justice. Nick has served on the boards of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Living Cities, Center for Working Families, and St. Christopher’s Inc. In 2015, he joined the advisory council of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance. Nick received his BA from Yale College and his JD from Yale Law School.