Mark Turner

Mark Turner (born 1954) is a cognitive scientist, linguist, and author. He is Institute Professor and Professor of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University. Previously, he served as Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and Associate Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Turner has been a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University, and the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He is the founding director of the Cognitive Science Network. He is a member of the New England Institute for Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Psychology, the Institute for the Science of Origins, the Humanwissenschaftliches Zentrum der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, and External Research Professor of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study.

The French Academy awarded him the Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises in 1996.

Turner and Gilles Fauconnier founded the theory of conceptual blending.

His wife is the award-winning children's author Megan Whalen Turner. They have three sons.