Wendy Turner, PhD

Dr. Turner received graduate degrees from University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and University of California, Berkeley. She was an NSF International Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Albany, State University of New York before joining the Wisconsin Unit in 2020. Dr. Turner specializes in wildlife disease ecology, currently studying disease transmission dynamics for chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer in the Midwest, anthrax in mammalian herbivores in Namibia and South Africa, and white-nose syndrome in coastal Northern long-eared bats in the northeastern United States. Dr. Turner’s research aims to fill critical gaps in our knowledge of disease transmission and variation in disease outbreaks over space and time. She takes a broad approach to investigating disease systems from the three sides of the “disease triangle” incorporating how variation in hosts, pathogens and the environment modulate host-pathogen contact, disease transmission, and ultimately disease outbreaks in host populations or communities. Dr. Turner focuses on disease systems with environmental transmission, specifically pathogens that can survive for extensive periods in the off-host environment. Dr. Turner has taught courses on ecology, the ecology and evolution of wildlife diseases, graduate research approaches, and Namibian conservation.