Miles Turner was an undergraduate at Imperial College, of London University, where he received a B. Sc. in Physics with first class honours in 1986. He then become a research student at St Andrews University, in Scotland, where he obtained a Ph. D. for a thesis dealing with the kinetics of excimer lasers in 1990. After a brief post-doctoral appointment in St Andrews, he joined Dublin City University in 1991 as a lecturer in the School of Physical Sciences. He become a senior lecturer in 2001 and an associate professor in 2003. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley in 1997-98, where he taught in the Graduate School. He has also been a visiting scholar at Flinders University of South Australia, the University of Essen, and Ecole Polytechnique. He was the Associate Director of the National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology from 1999 to 2004, and was Director between 2004 and 2020. In summer 2006, he became the Head of Research Unit of Association EURATOM-DCU, the organising body for fusion energy research in Ireland. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Chartered Scientist, and an ordinary member of various other professional societies.