Dr. Akiva Turner is Chair and Professor of the Health Care Sciences Department at NSU. He has a Ph.D. in anthropology (medical emphasis) and a master of public health from UCLA. He also holds a law degree from Yeshiva University in New York. Dr. Turner has held faculty positions at California State University in Los Angeles and at the City University of New York, Hunter College in Manhattan. 

Outside of academia, Dr. Turner has served as the Associate Director of Planning at AIDS Project Los Angeles, as the Executive Director of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, as the County Health Director for a Georgia health department, as the Chief Executive Officer of a tuberculosis hospital, as the Deputy General Counsel of Mental Health/Chief Privacy Officer of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as a member of the Florida Public Health Ethics Workgroup and as the Communicable Disease Director of the Broward County Health Department in Fort Lauderdale.  He serves on the journal editorial boards of EC Psychology and Psychiatry, Open Access Public Health, and Healthcare Research and Public Safety Journal. He has published many peer reviewed articles in public health, psychology, and religion, as well as a peer reviewed book on HIV prevention published by Columbia University Press.