Robert E. Morris, DDS ’69, MPH
Dr. Robert Morris is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry (UMSOD) and a highly esteemed international public health expert. His varied lifelong contributions have significantly improved the health and quality of life for vulnerable populations throughout the world, particularly children, refugees, victims of war, and those living with HIV/AIDS.
A public health pioneer, champion of health education, and longtime philanthropist, Morris and his wife, Jill Morris, are among the co-founders of the Mai Tam House of Hope in Vietnam, which provides medicine, food, housing, and educational and income-generating opportunities to mothers and children affected by HIV/AIDS.
Closer to home, he established a scholarship fund for students from Trinidad and Tobago at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1965. Now retired, Morris serves as the Mai Tam House of Hope’s international health consultant and continues to work with organizations that provide free medical care to child victims of war.
After graduating from UMSOD in 1969, Morris completed a two-year tour in Vietnam with the U.S. Navy, an experience that inspired his commitment to improving public health systems worldwide that has spanned more than five decades. For his service to fellow seamen and Marines, his voluntary travel to bases deep within the war zone, and his work to provide dental care to Vietnamese villagers, Morris was honored in 1970 with the U.S. Navy Achievement Medal for bravery, outstanding professionalism, and humanitarian efforts for the Vietnamese people.
In the early 1970s, Morris served on a series of volunteer projects in Baltimore and the mountain villages of Baja, Mexico. He also taught at UMSOD for three years. In 1975, he joined the Pan American Health Organization and was posted to Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. As a project manager and senior lecturer, he established a school of dental nursing, which graduates dental nurses from 13 developing countries of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. This project has dramatically increased the number of oral health clinicians available to provide children’s health care and prevention in those regions.
Morris then attended the Harvard School of Public Health, graduating in 1986 with a Master of Public Health degree. He joined the Ministry of Health in Kuwait, helping to develop a school of oral hygiene, a national university-based dental school at Kuwait University, a postgraduate training center for refugee dentists, and the Health for All 2000 Oral Health Plan, a World Health Organization-backed comprehensive oral disease prevention program for the children of Kuwait.
Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and Morris became a hostage. After escaping and returning to Boston, he went back to Kuwait when the Gulf War ended. There, he served as the senior consultant to the Ministry of Health and led planning for the post-war reconstruction of the oral health sector and the implementation of a comprehensive disease prevention program for children. Applying this strategic approach to other public health issues, Morris worked with the Gulf Cooperation Council to develop seat-belt and smoking laws in the Arab Gulf States.
He has written widely on diverse topics such as quantifying HIV risk in dental care workers, the cost effect/benefits of alternative fluoride interventions, and the fluctuations in health status and incidence of maxillofacial fractures, head and neck cancers, and oral disease in relation to smoking.
In 2000, Morris was one of 11 living dentists worldwide to be honored by the World Dental Federation for lifelong service to international health and contributions to oral health research. In 2010, he was recognized by the College of the Holy Cross with the Sanctae Crucis Award, the college’s highest non-academic award for alumni. In 2014, he received the Harvard School of Public Health’s highest alumni honor, the Alumni Award of Merit, and, in 2018, he received UMSOD’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
