Dr. E. Sirakaya-Turk, Alfred Sloan Research Professor of tourism in the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management at the University of South Carolina, Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies.

He received his Ph.D. and MS from Clemson University, South Carolina USA.  He was the 2007 recipient of US State Department’s prestigious Fulbright scholarship to teach tourism and marketing and conduct destination development and branding studies in Russia. Before joining USC, Dr. Turk worked as an associate professor at Texas A&M University for 8 years and at the Pennsylvania State University as an assistant professor for three years.

 Dr. Sirakaya-Turk has published a significant number of articles in the area of tourism destination marketing and sustainable developmental policy in prestigious tourism journals such as the Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Travel Research and completed numerous grants/ contracts exceeding $1.2. million.  Dr. Sirakaya Turk is the founding-editor and current associate Editor for an online tourism research bulletin (e-Review of Tourism Research). He also serves at editorial boards of several journals including Journal of Travel Research, Annals of Tourism Research, Tourism Analysis, Anatolia, European Journal of Tourism Research and European Journal of Economic and Political Studies and is a field reviewer for numerous academic journals. He serves as a member in an international Think Tank group (BEST-EN) that deals with issues of sustainable tourism development issues in developing countries.  His dissertation work has received a prestigious TTRA’s William B. Keeling award. He served as a faculty senator and was a member of the Institutional Review Board (Ethics Board in Human Research Subjects) of Texas A&M University (2002-2005).  He teaches tourism economics, marketing and research methods classes.  Currently, he is completing a research methods book and numerous publications pertaining to branding places and sustainability.