Morris Appointed as Director of Humanities Institute at UW

University of Wyoming history assistant professor, author and Fulbright scholar Melissa Morris has been appointed the next director of the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research (WIHR) at UW.

WIHR promotes, supports and showcases humanities scholarship at UW and throughout the state and world. The institute supports individual and collaborative research projects of UW faculty, students and staff as an engine that fosters interdisciplinary research in the humanities.

Morris’s appointment was the culmination of an extensive review and planning process that began in late 2024. At that time, UW’s College of Arts and Sciences organized a highly successful humanities summit; WIHR then conducted a five-year review of its activities and accomplishments. A review committee made up of internal and external distinguished researchers in humanities summarized the review in a report.

UW’s Research and Economic Development Division (REDD) then sought input from humanities faculty across campus. Their input resulted in a plan for WIHR -- and now Morris as its director -- to elevate UW’s profile as a globally preeminent institution for humanities research.

“WIHR serves a critical function to support humanities research for the benefit of Wyoming and the rest of the world,” says Parag Chitnis, UW vice president for research and economic development. “Dr. Morris is exceptionally qualified to take the institute to new levels of effectiveness and support for production of interdisciplinary research in humanities for UW and its stakeholders -- students, faculty and the public at large. This is an exciting new chapter for WIHR, and I’m thrilled she has taken on this important role.”

Morris teaches several courses within the Department of History in the College of Arts and Sciences, and is a historian who specializes in 16th- and 17th-century American and Caribbean histories -- specifically, cross-cultural interactions between Indigenous residents and European cultures. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2017 and has been with UW since 2018.

“I’m looking forward to directing the institute, which has been an important part of my career here at UW,” Morris says. “We have incredibly talented scholars at UW who perform cutting-edge research in the humanities. My role is to amplify and support that research with the aim of achieving greater recognition and support for our faculty. I am excited to reenergize the institute’s efforts while continuing its tradition of strong support for the humanities at UW and throughout Wyoming.”

Morris received a Fulbright U.S. Scholarship to Leiden University in the Netherlands in 2023, a fellowship from the British Library and a UW College of Arts and Sciences Extraordinary Merit in Research Award.

Morris’s work at UW has been supported by REDD, the School of Computing, the College of Arts and Sciences and WIHR. Her first book, “Cultivating Colonies: Tobacco and the Origins of Empires, 1590-1740,” is being published by the University of Pennsylvania Press for release in 2026.

Teaching and research in the humanities have been central to education since antiquity and at the core of UW since its founding. The humanities include any research that explores and contextualizes the human experience in an effort to better understand the world, past and present.