He then completed his doctorate at Columbia University New York, where he studied science (astronomy) in Islamic societies under the supervision of George Saliba.

In 2018, Morrison was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for research on the Jewish scholarly intermediaries between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Italy.

His recent book, The Light of the World: Astronomy in al-Andalus studied scientific theories which were produced in Andalusia in 1400, and traveled first to the Ottoman court and then to the University of Padua, Italy.

"[4] Morrison's research has discovered a network of Jewish scholars who traveled between the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the Vèneto in northeastern Italy.

His current book project An Economy of Knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean addresses the question of intellectual exchange between Islamic societies and the West in the 1400s and early 1500s.