About Dr. Nathaniel Frank

Dr. Nathaniel Frank, founder and editor of the “What We Know” Research Portal, is a cultural historian with a Ph.D. from Brown University, and is currently a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School. He is author of the critically acclaimed Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, which won the American Library Association’s Stonewall Book Award for non-fiction. He is a frequent contributor to Slate magazine and a blogger on the Huffington Post.

He spent a decade at the University of California studying the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, becoming an internationally recognized authority on LGBT equality and public policy. After the policy ended in 2011, he launched the “What We Know” site to ensure that other critical public policy issues are informed by the best scholarly evidence available.

Dr. Frank has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs, including “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” “Good Morning America,” the “CBS Evening News,” NPR’s “Fresh Air,” as well as Logo, the BBC, the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, National Review and more. His publications on LGBT and other issues have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The New Republic, New York Magazine, Slate, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Newsday, Philadelphia Inquirer, Lingua Franca and others.

A popular speaker, Dr. Frank has addressed audiences at West Point Military Academy, National Press Club, Center for American Progress, University of Pennsylvania, University of Nebraska, McCormick Freedom Museum, Boston College, the Smithsonian and elsewhere. His research and opinions have been cited on the Congressional floor, in syndicated columns, college syllabi, and throughout the blogosphere.