Richard P. Morrison, Ph.D.
Dr. Richard P. “Rick” Morrison, a leading expert in the immunology of chlamydia infection, works to advance research across departments and research groups as executive associate dean for research.
Dr. Morrison works to support faculty scientists in their mission to develop biomedical knowledge that leads to improved health and health care. He began serving as executive associate dean in August 2017.
Dr. Morrison’s own NIH-funded research has led to seminal findings in the fields of chlamydial pathogenesis and immunology, most notably in defining an interferon-gamma induced model of persistent intracellular chlamydial infection and in identifying the role of T-cells and antibodies in protection against intracellular chlamydial infection. He received the NIH Intramural Award of Merit for his work in 1992.
As chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the College of Medicine from 2007 through August 2017, Dr. Morrison led an exceptionally successful faculty that approximately tripled its extramural grant funding in 10 years. He also served as a co-principal investigator, director of the research core and associate director of the administrative core for UAMS’ Center of Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Inflammatory Responses. Dr. Morrison was the inaugural recipient of the rotating Endowed Chair in Sciences Basic to Medicine at UAMS from 2007 to 2012.
Dr. Morrison was recruited to UAMS from the University of Alabama Birmingham, where he was a Professor in the Department of Medicine from 2004 to 2007. He also served on the faculty at UAB earlier in his career, from 1994 to 1997. From 1997 to 2004 he was a faculty member in the Department of Microbiology at Montana State University in Bozeman. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma in Norman in 1982. He served in postdoctoral and staff positions at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, from 1982 to 1994.
Contact Dr. Morrison: (501) 686-8599 | RPMorrison@uams.edu