Mark Turin

Mark Turin
Mark Turin lecturing at Dartmouth College, February 2013
Born	(1973-10-27) 27 October 1973 (age 44) London, United Kingdom
Residence	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Alma mater	University of Cambridge, B.A. Leiden University, PhD
Occupation	linguist, anthropologist, broadcaster
Known for	Director, Digital Himalaya, World Oral Literature Project, Yale Himalaya Initiative and presenting on BBC Radio

Mark Turin (born 1973) is a British anthropologist, linguist and broadcaster of Italo-Dutch origin who specialises in the Himalayas and the Pacific Northwest. He serves as Chair of the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program and Acting Co-Director of the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of the Digital Himalaya Project.

After completing his undergraduate studies in Anthropology and Archaeology with First Class Honours from the University of Cambridge (1995), Turin prepared a grammatical description and lexicon of the previously undocumented Thangmi (Thami) language spoken in Nepal and northern India for his doctoral research through the Himalayan Languages Project at the University of Leiden. From May 2007 until May 2008, he served as Chief of the Translation and Interpretation Unit in the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN).

Turin continues to direct the Digital Himalaya Project, which he co-established in December 2000, based jointly the University of Cambridge and the University of British Columbia. In 2009, he established up the World Oral Literature Project supporting the documentation and preservation of oral literatures and endangered cultural traditions, affiliated to the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Turin was elected to a Fellowship at Hughes Hall, Cambridge in March 2011 and made a Quondam Fellow in March 2014.