Philip Morrison received his Ph.D. in physics from University of California, San Diego, in 1979. He is a professor at the Department of Physics and a Research Scientist at the Institute for Fusion Studies, where he has worked on basic and applied plasma physics problems.

Dr. Morrison has been associated with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Program for twenty years, and as a member of its faculty he has worked on basic and applied fluid mechanics problems. He investigated the nonlinear Hamiltonian dynamics of few and infinite degree-of-freedom systems for many years. Through his affiliation with the Oden Institute Applied Mathematics Group, he has worked on developing and applying advanced computational algorithms.