Carnegie Mellon’s M. Granger Morgan to Receive Prestigious Award From Society for Risk Analysis

November 23, 2009

Contact: Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
412.268.5776

PITTSBURGH-Carnegie Mellon University's M. Granger Morgan will receive the 2009 Distinguished Educator Award from the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) during the society's annual meeting Dec. 8 in Baltimore. The award is given to a teacher, author or mentor who has contributed substantially to the training of new experts in risk analysis.

           
Morgan, head of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Engineering and Public Policy (EPP), has worked for more than two decades on research addressing problems in science, technology and public policy with a particular focus on energy, environmental systems, climate change and risk analysis. He is a University Professor, the highest honor a faculty member can achieve at Carnegie Mellon, and holds the Thomas Lord Chair in Engineering.

           
"Granger has had an unparalleled influence on the training of a generation of scholars in risk assessment and management," said Adam M. Finkel, professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of the New Jersey School of Public Health and visiting professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

           
Kim Thompson, an adjunct associate professor of risk analysis and decision science in the Harvard School of Public Health, praised Morgan for his outstanding mentorship of many faculty and students as the program leader at Carnegie Mellon. 

           
"He has brought vision and commitment to the field of risk analysis, and to the SRA since its creation, and has taught many, many people around the world about how to deal with uncertainty," Thompson said.

           
Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering, said Morgan is deserving of the award for his outstanding and novel approach to risk and public policy issues. "Carnegie Mellon's Department of Engineering and Public Policy is both unique and innovative in its approach to tackling critical issues that span everything from climate change to security," Khosla said.

           
"Through the Ph.D. program in our Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon, my colleagues and I have educated scores of today's young leaders in risk analysis and management," Morgan said. "As we follow all the great things they are doing, it is remarkably rewarding."

           
Chris Frey, who received his Ph.D. in EPP in 1991 from Carnegie Mellon, said Morgan is a role model for what it means to be a professional, an engineer, a risk analyst and a human being. "He is deeply admired, respected and revered by those who have had the privilege to benefit from his example, mentoring, experience, insight and wisdom," said Frey, past president of the SRA and a professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University.

           
At Carnegie Mellon, Morgan directs the National Science Foundation Climate Decision Making Center and is co-director of the university's Electricity Industry Center. He also serves as chair of the Scientific and Technical Council for the International Risk Governance Council.

           
Morgan also has served as chair of the Science Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as chair of the Advisory Council of the Electric Power Research Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Society for Risk Analysis.

           
He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1963, a master's degree in astronomy and space science from Cornell University in 1965, and a Ph.D. from the Department of Applied Physics and Information Sciences at the University of California at San Diego in 1969.