Dr. Turnquist has been a Cornell faculty member since 1979, specializing in transportation systems. From 1984 to 1986 he served as associate dean for computing in the College of Engineering, and during the 1986-87 academic year he was a visiting professor at General Motors Research Laboratories. Since 1988, he has headed the Master of Engineering program in engineering management.

Turnquist is a past chairman of the Transportation Science Section of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences, and is a member of the Transportation Research Board and the Production and Operations Management Society.

He serves as a consultant to companies in the transportation and manufacturing industries on logistics issues and the application of large-scale network optimization methods.