Ruth Dixon Turner (1914 – April 30, 2000) was a pioneering U.S. marine biologist and malacologist.

She was the world's expert on Teredinidae or shipworms, a taxonomic family of wood-boring bivalve mollusks which severely damage wooden marine installations.

Turner held the Alexander Agassiz Professorship at Harvard University, and was a Curator of Malacology in the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology, where she also served as co-editor of the scientific journal Johnsonia.

[1][2] Turner became one of Harvard's first tenured women professors in 1973, and was one of the most academically successful female marine researchers, publishing over 200 scientific articles and a book during her long career.

[4] Organisms named in honor of Turner include two symbiotic bacteria associated with bivalves: Teredinibacter turnerae (isolated from the shipworm Lyrodus pedicellatus),[5] and Candidatus Ruthia magnifica (from the deep-sea bivalve Calyptogena magnifica).