The center's goals are to improve understanding of regional- and global-scale environmental issues; develop the capabilities to anticipate the long-term, large-scale effects that human actions have on the biosphere; and identify appropriate options for technological and societal responses.
Turner will be working on initiatives of the center, including studies of global climate change, sustainable development issues, and how economists and ecologists can learn and benefit from each other's studies. He is currently leading a series of workshops for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The workshops will recommend to the EPA how it can assess regional ecological, economical, institutional and cultural effects of global climate change in the southeastern United States.
Turner has held several positions at ORNL since 1983, including leader of the Biogeochemical Cycling Group, project scientist for the ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center (an information archive and distribution center for NASA's ground-based biogeochemical dynamics data), and primary contributor in several roles to the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program. He came to ORNL in 1983 as a Wigner Fellow.
Turner received a bachelor of science degree in zoology at Duke University and both a master's degree in regional planning and a doctorate in geology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Turner was awarded the Dean's Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, the Eugene P. Wigner Fellowship at ORNL, ORNL Significant Event and ORNL Special Achievement Awards, and citations from the EPA and National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program for outstanding contributions.
Turner is a member of Sigma Xi, the American Geophysical Union, the American Chemical Society, the Ecological Society of America and the Soil Science Society of America.
Turner lives in Oak Ridge with his wife, Amy, and their two daughters, Julie, 6, and Mallory, 2.
ORNL, one of DOE's multiprogram research and development communities, is managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, which also manages the Oak Ridge K-25 Site and the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant.