I am an assistant professor (research) of economics at the Center for Economics and Social Research (CESR) and in the Department of Economics at University of Southern California. At CESR, I am the director of the Behavioral and Health Genomics Center. I am also the chair of the Method Development Working Group and a member of the Steering Committee for the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium. My research fields include in social science genomics, statistical genetics, econometrics, economics of education, and labor economics.
PREDOC POSITION: The SSGAC is looking for predoctoral research assistants based at UCLA. The position would be jointly mentored by Dan Benjamin, Alex Young, and me. See link for details.
POSTDOC POSITION: I am hiring! Looking for a postdoc to work on projects at the intersection of computational population genetics, statistical genetics, and behavioral genetics. Potential joint mentorship with Doc Edge. See link for details on the position or how to apply.
Patrick Turley, PhD
Assistant Professor (Research)
Center for Economic and Social Research
Department of Economics
University of Southern California
​
635 Downey Way

Los Angeles, CA 90089-3332
Phone:
801-360-7650
Email:
pturley AT usc.edu
​
CV
EDUCATION
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Field: Economics
Thesis: Essays in Economics and Education
Honors: Roger L. Martin Cornerstone Graduate Student Fellowship
(9/2015 – 5/2016) and National Science Foundation
Graduate Research Fellowship (9/2010 – 5/2013)
2010-2016
PhD
2003-2010
Bachelor's Degree
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
Field: Mathematics and Economics
Thesis: Partially Adaptive Estimation of Truncated Regression
Models: A Comparison with Several Semiparametric
Estimators
Honors: Valedictorian and University Honors
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
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“Public views on polygenic screening of embryos" [last author] with Michelle N. Meyer, Tammy Tan, Daniel J. Benjamin, and David
Laibson. 2023, Science, 379(6632), 541-543.
“Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million
individuals” [starred last author] with Aysu Okbay, Yeda We, et al. 2022, Nature Genetics, 54, 437-449.
“Distributional Effects of Education on Health” [joint authorship] with Silvia H. Barcellos and Leandro Carvalho. Journal of Human
Resources, forthcoming.
“Problems with Using Polygenic Scores to Select Embryos” [starred 1st author] with Michelle Meyers, David Cesarini, et al. 2021 New
England Journal of Medicine, 385(1), 78-86.
“Resource profile and user guide of the Polygenic Index Repository” [starred last author] with Joel Becker, Casper A.P. Burik, et al.
2021, Nature Human Behavior, 5, 1744-1758.
“Education can Reduce Health Differences Related to Genetic Risk of Obesity: Evidence from a British Reform” [joint authorship]
with Silvia H. Barcellos and Leandro Carvalho. 2018, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 115(42), E9765-E9772.
“Gene Discovery and Polygenic Prediction from a 1.1-million-person GWAS of Educational Attainment” [starred last author] with
James J. Lee, Robbee Wedow et al. Nature Genetics, 2018, 50, 1112-1121.
“Multi-trait analysis of genome-wide association summary statistics using MTAG” [first author] with Raymond Walters, Omeed
Maghzian, et al. Nature Genetics, 2018, 50(2), 229-237.
“Was that SMART: Institutional Financial Incentives and Field of Study” with Jeff Denning. Journal of Human Resources, 2017, 52(1),
152-186.
​
Working Papers
“The Effect of Education on the Relationship between Genetics, Early-Life Disadvantages, and Later- Life SES” [joint authorship] with
Silvia H. Barcellos and Leandro Carvalho. NBER WP, 28750.
“Multi-Ancestry Meta-Analysis Yields Novel Genetic Discoveries and Ancestry-specific Associations” [first author] with Alicia Martin,
Grant Goldman, et al. bioRxiv.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
08/2019
Visiting Faculty
Genoeconomics, Department of Economics and Business Economics, University of Aarhus
06/2016, 06/2017, 06/2019
Visiting Faculty
Summer Institute in Social Science Genomics, Russell Sage Foundation
09-12/2012
Teaching Fellow
Microeconomic Theory, Professor Edward Glaeser, Harvard University
SOFTWARE
MTAG - GitHub repository for the implementation of "MTAG: Multi-trait Analysis of GWAS" in Python.