Seeding opportunities for Black atmospheric scientists

"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."

"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."

Vernon Morris earned a doctorate in Earth and atmospheric sciences in 1991 from the Georgia Institute of Technology and was the first African American to do so in that field. He founded in 2001 the first PhD-granting graduate programme in atmospheric sciences at an HBCU while a professor at Howard University. 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. Morris specializes in airborne particle processes, studying long-range mineral-dust transport, microbial communities on transported dust, and impacts on weather, climate and ecosystem biogeochemistry.

Read at Nature