Professor Turi King

Professor Turi King is a world-renowned geneticist working in the fields of ancient and historical forensic genetics and genetic genealogy. She is probably best known for having led the genetic analysis and identification of the remains of King Richard III and for being the co-presenter and genetic-genealogist on the BBC’s DNA Family Secrets.

Turi started her career read Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge before obtaining a scholarship to carry out an MSc in Molecular Genetics, and followed by a Wellcome Trust Prize Studentship funded, and later award-wining, PhD in Molecular Genetics with Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys as PhD advisor, at the University of Leicester. Her research was on the link between surnames and the Y chromosome using forensic techniques and applying them to historical questions and bringing her her first experience with genetic genealogy over 25 years ago. All of Turi’s works combines forensics with genealogy, history and archaeology. She is now Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath.

Turi has had decades of experience with genetic genealogy and she has given talks to a number of police forces explaining the process and how it can be brought to bear on naming the unidentified. She is keen to grow her career in this field and is currently setting up an ancient and forensic DNA lab at the University of Bath.