Paul E. Turner

Paul Eugene Turner is an American evolutionary biologist and virologist, the Rachel Carson Professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, and a faculty member in microbiology at the Yale School of Medicine. His research focuses on the evolutionary genetics of viruses, particularly bacteriophages and RNA viruses transmitted by mosquitoes. In 2025, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Early life Paul Turner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1966 to Eugene Turner, a Presbyterian minister, and Sylvia Turner, a public schoolteacher. Turner grew up outside of Syracuse, New York, where he spent his childhood among forests and lakes, observing animals in their natural habitats. He therefore took a four-month internship at a National Audubon Society wildlife sanctuary in Monson, Maine after graduating. When Lenski’s research group transferred to Michigan State University in 1991, Turner moved with the group and completed his PhD in Zoology (with a certificate from the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB) Program) there in 1995.

Following his graduate studies, Turner completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Valencia, and the National Institutes of Health.

Turner has co-authored over 150 publications that have together been cited over 6,000 times. Although Turner is known for his foundational work in viral evolution, he has recently begun to apply his insights towards advancing the development of phage therapy against antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

Awards and recognition

Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2019)