Monica G. Turner

Monica G. Turner is the Eugene P. Odum Professor of Ecology and a Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research emphasizes causes and consequences of spatial heterogeneity in ecological systems, focusing primarily on ecosystem and landscape ecology. She has studied fire, vegetation dynamics, nutrient cycling, bark beetle outbreaks, and climate change in Greater Yellowstone for over 25 years, including long-term research on the 1988 Yellowstone fires. She also studies abrupt change in ecological systems, land-water interactions in Wisconsin landscapes, and spatial dynamics of ecosystem services. She has published ~ 250 scientific papers and authored or edited six books.

Turner earned her PhD in Ecology from the University of Georgia and spent 7 as a research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory before joining the faculty at the University of Wisconsin. She is a past-president of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), a recipient of ESA’s Robert H. MacArthur Award, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.