Sarah Turner is University Professor of Economics and Education at the University of Virginia and a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research. Turner's research focuses on both the supply and demand sides of the education market and the link with the labor market, with particular attention to how public policies affect outcomes. Recent research projects include the "Aid and Application Awareness" survey of how high school seniors and their parents perceive the costs of different collegiate options, expectations about the likelihood of admission, general knowledge of financial aid, and sources of guidance and information in the college application process. Turner's research also examines scientific labor markets and the internationalization of doctorate education with a focus on understanding the distribution of students by country of origin and program quality at U.S. institutions, the domestic and home-country factors affecting the persistence of foreign-born PhDs in the U.S. labor market, and how the influx of foreign PhDs affects wages and future decisions to enter science and engineering fields.

Turner received a B.A. in Economics from  from Princeton University in 1989 and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan in 1997.