Vernon R. Morris

Vernon R. Morris (born January 23, 1963) is an American atmospheric scientist, Foundation Professor and Associate Dean of the Knowledge Enterprise in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. He is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the former Director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at Howard University. He was awarded the 2018 American Meteorological Society Charles E. Anderson award and the 2020 Presidential Citation for Science and Society American Geophysical Union.

Early life and education Morris was born in San Antonio. His mother and father worked for the United States Air Force, and he lived in fourteen different places as a child. He finished high school in Spokane, Washington. Morris went on to complete his undergraduate degree at Morehouse, where he specialised in chemistry and mathematics. Whilst at Morehouse, Morris met his future graduate advisor John H. Hall.

After an opportunity arose to join the research group of Hall as a scientist, Morris moved to the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), where he started a graduate programme in atmospheric science. His work combined experimental and theoretical investigations to better understand how chlorine oxides contributed to the depletion of stratospheric ozone. To understand the impact of these at a global scale, Morris directed several observation missions on board the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown. Amongst these missions were the AERosols and Oceanographic Science Expeditions (AEROSE), which involved investigations into the air mass outflows of Africa. These outflows included particulates from the Sahara desert and aerosols from the burning of biomass due to slash-and-burn agriculture.

Academic service As of 2017, in the United States, fewer than 0.1% of geoscience doctoral students are African American or Native American. In an interview with Chalkdust magazine, Morris remarked, "if you never see any African American professors, or very rarely see them, then you don't see yourself becoming one, and you say to yourself maybe I should do something else,". In 2001 Morris founded the Howard University (HU) Graduate Program in Atmospheric Sciences (HUPAS), which was the first atmospheric science doctoral programme at a minority serving institution. Under his leadership, HUPAS became a national leader in the graduation of minority atmospheric science researchers; between 2006 and 2016 HUPAS produced half of all African-American doctoral graduates in the United States. Almost 70% of the students who participate in the weather camps are African-American or Latinx. Beyond Washington, D.C., these events took place in Brazil, Barbados, Uruguay, the Philippines, Ethiopia and Sudan. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Atmospheric Science and the Climate. American Meteorological Society Charles E. Anderson award Elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers Henry Cecil McBay Outstanding Teacher Award

Personal life Morris has three daughters and a son.

Selected publications