Vernon Morris (outlined) with alumni from the atmospheric sciences PhD programme he established at Howard University in Washington DC.Credit: Vernon Morris
Changemakers This Nature Q&A series celebrates individuals who have fought racism in science and who champion inclusion. The series often highlights initiatives that could be applied to other scientific workplaces.
When Vernon Morris earned his doctorate in Earth and atmospheric sciences in 1991 from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, he was the first African American to do so, joining fewer than a dozen other Black atmospheric sciences PhD holders in the United States at that time.
From the get-go, Morris knew that something needed to change to create more opportunities for Black scientists in his field. In 2001, as a professor at Howard University in Washington DC, he became founding director of the first PhD-granting graduate programme in atmospheric sciences at a historically Black college and university (HBCU). Between 2006 and 2018, that programme produced at least 50% of African American and 30% of Latinx PhD graduates in atmospheric sciences in the United States.
A specialist in airborne particle processes, Morris studies long-range transport of mineral dust from desert regions and densely populated areas, such as megacities. His team’s work feeds into global and regional models of weather and climate that are used to make predictions in forecast models for hurricanes and tropical storms.
I encourage women to claim their space in astrophysics and beyond
For example, Morris studies microbial populations found on grains of desert sand transported from Africa to the Caribbean, and then on to the continental United States and South America. “We’re finding fairly rich microbial populations on those” grains, he says, and the populations “change as the surface chemistry changes”. These microorganisms can affect ecosystem health in the oceans or in soils where they are deposited, he notes. Understanding particle transport “can have domino effects in how we understand biogeochemistry and microbial exchange between continents”, he says.
Morris is now an associate dean for knowledge enterprise and strategic outcomes at Arizona State University in Tempe. Much as with particle transport, his influence on younger generations of scientists is far-reaching.
In 2023, Morris received the American Geophysical Union’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Diversity and Inclusion. He was recognized for having mentored more than 200 students and geoscientists of colour and for creating partnerships that benefited at least 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. What’s more, he initiated No Time for Silence, a collaborative call to action for anti-racism in the geoscience community. Morris spoke to Nature about chasing dust storms and why science needs intellectual activists now more than ever.
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