Turi King
Senior teams often need a speaker who can hold a room of mixed scientific and non-scientific attendees without dumbing the material down. Most technical experts cannot do this. Most professional hosts cannot speak with first-hand authority on a major scientific investigation. The gap shows up at innovation events, R&D leadership offsites, and award ceremonies where the brief calls for both credibility and warmth.
Turi King is the geneticist who identified Richard III’s remains and now directs the Milner Centre for Evolution at Bath, working with organisations as a keynote speaker, broadcaster and host on science, identity and the human story behind DNA.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Turi King
- She led one of the most-publicised forensic genetics cases in modern British history. The Richard III identification is a named, verifiable case study she can speak to with primary authority, not a borrowed reference.
- She translates complex science for non-specialist audiences without losing rigour. Audiences across Congressional Breakfasts on Capitol Hill, the Moscow Science Festival opening, and a Royal Institution Christmas Lecture have rated her as one of the clearest communicators in her field.
- She runs a research centre as well as a broadcasting career. The combination is rare and lets her sit credibly on innovation panels, science award juries, and CEO-level conversations on R&D.
- She presents to camera at scale. BBC Two’s DNA Family Secrets with Stacey Dooley and Sky History’s Ancient Murders Unearthed make her one of the few academic speakers who is equally comfortable on a corporate stage and a broadcast set.
- She brings emotional weight to a technical topic. Her work on DNA Family Secrets, where DNA testing reunites separated families or uncovers medical risk, gives her material that lands with audiences in a way that pure-lab science never does.
Biography highlights
- Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution, University of Bath.
- Led the DNA identification of King Richard III, University of Leicester, 2012.
- Presenter, DNA Family Secrets, BBC Two, with Stacey Dooley.
- Presenter, Ancient Murders Unearthed, Sky History.
- Host, Head Number 7 podcast, Wondery.
- Honorary Fellow, British Science Association, 2016.
- Awards from the Genetics Society and the British Council for science communication.
- Author, Surnames, DNA, and Family History.
Biography
Richard III’s skeleton was found under a Leicester car park in 2012. The remains needed to be identified beyond doubt before the find could be made public. Turi King led the genetics. She and her team built the genealogy of two living maternal-line descendants of Richard III’s sister, sequenced their mitochondrial DNA, and compared it with DNA extracted from a tooth in the skeleton. The match held. The identification became the foundation of one of the most-cited forensic genetics cases of the century.
The work made her a public scientist. She had already trained at Cambridge in archaeology and anthropology and completed her MSc and PhD in molecular genetics at Leicester, but the Richard III project moved her into broadcasting and onto stages including a Royal Institution Christmas Lecture, a Congressional Breakfast on Capitol Hill, and the opening of the Moscow Science Festival.
She now directs the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, one of the UK’s main evolutionary biology research centres. Alongside the research role she presents BBC Two’s DNA Family Secrets with Stacey Dooley, where genetic testing is used to answer questions about heritage, missing relatives, and inherited disease, and hosts the Wondery podcast Head Number 7.
What makes her unusual as a corporate speaker is the combination of working scientist, broadcaster, and on-stage host. She has been recognised by the Genetics Society and the British Council for science communication, and was made an Honorary Fellow of the British Science Association in 2016. She is comfortable carrying a keynote, moderating a panel of senior executives, or hosting an awards evening.
Key speaking topics
- Forensic DNA and the Richard III investigation
- Genetic genealogy and ancestry
- Science communication for non-specialist audiences
- Evolution and human origins
- Identity, family, and inherited disease
- Women in science
Ideal for
- Innovation leaders, R&D directors, and CTOs hosting cross-functional offsites where the brief calls for a credible scientist who can engage non-scientific colleagues.
- Awards ceremonies and gala dinners in the science, technology, healthcare, and education sectors looking for a host with on-screen presence.
- Chief Communications Officers and learning leads commissioning storytelling content on identity, family, and human history.
- Universities, science festivals, and policy gatherings where the speaker needs both academic credibility and broadcast skill.
Audience outcomes
- A vivid, first-hand account of how the Richard III identification was actually done, including the genealogy, the lab work, and the decisions that held the case together.
- A working sense of how DNA testing now answers everyday questions about ancestry, missing relatives, and inherited medical risk.
- A clearer view of what good science communication looks like in practice, from someone who does it on television and on stage.
- A reminder of why investment in basic science matters, told through cases the audience already recognises.