[2] John Glenn Morris Sr. was a theologian who received his Doctor of Philosophy from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1946, completing a dissertation entitled Christianity and social change in China, 1912–1942.
[2] Morris moved to Thailand at the age of six weeks but periodically resided in the United States, specifically in Louisville, Kentucky and Kansas City, Missouri.
[2] After, Morris participated in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service, a two-year postdoctoral training in field epidemiology.
Morris has continued to advocate for issues of public health consequence such as federal food safety programs[11] and responses to emerging pathogens like the Zika[12] and Keystone[13] viruses.
[14][15] Alongside microbial pathogens, he has researched the human health effects of ciguatera fish poisoning[16] and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.