He was a professor of chemistry at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn; now New York University.

He published two books: Macromolecules in Solution and Polymers and The Origins and Growth of a Science both Wiley).

Herbert's wife Cathleen Synge Morawetz was a prolific mathematician at NYU.

His sister Sonja Morawetz Sinclair revealed in 2017 she was a WW2 codebreaker after seven decades of secrecy by Bletchley Park Signals Intelligence.

He helped organize the defection of Mikhail Barishnikov from the USSR 1974.