Ruth Turner

Ruth Dixon Turner (1914 – April 30, 2000) was a pioneering U.S. marine biologist and malacologist. She was the world's expert on Teredinidae or shipworms, a taxonomic family of wood-boring bivalve mollusks which severely damage wooden marine installations.

Turner held the Alexander Agassiz Professorship at Harvard University, and was a Curator of Malacology in the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology, where she also served as co-editor of the scientific journal Johnsonia. She graduated from Bridgewater State College, earned a master's degree at Cornell University and a Ph.D. at Harvard (Radcliffe College) where she specialized in shipworm research.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Turner became one of Harvard's first tenured women professors in 1973, and was one of the most academically successful female marine researchers, publishing over 200 scientific articles and a book during her long career. She was also the first female scientist to use the deep ocean research submarine Alvin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Much of Turner's work was done in co-operation with William J. Clench. Among other things they jointly described about 70 new mollusk species.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Organisms named in honor of Turner include two symbiotic bacteria associated with bivalves: Teredinibacter turnerae (isolated from the shipworm Lyrodus pedicellatus),<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and Candidatus Ruthia magnifica (from the deep-sea bivalve Calyptogena magnifica).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

References

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External links

• Biography of Turner
• Obituary of Turner