Morgan State launches Center for Urban and Climate Science Research in Baltimore

Morgan State University has created a new Center for Urban and Coastal Climate Science Research to address climate change, the institution announced Tuesday.

The center, one of six that the Baltimore university launched as part of recommendations from an internal blue-ribbon panel, will be working with the global scientific community and policymakers to develop solutions for climate change.

Willie May, vice president of research and economic development at Morgan State, said in a news release that the center “will work alongside Morgan’s other research centers, to leverage our innovative researcher faculty and academic staff to study and predict the impact of climate change on urban and coastal communities.”

The center will involve faculty members from various research areas at the historically Black university, including biology, chemistry, climate science, computer science and civil engineering. The university plans to hire 10 new faculty members to be a part of the center and will be taking a look at existing faculty to join, May said.

The research will focus on Baltimore City, Maryland and coastal regions across the U.S.

Additionally, the center will research connecting artificial intelligence and machine learning, health disparities, environmental health and climate science in a transdisciplinary approach. The funding for the initiative was part of Gov. Wes Moore’s fiscal year 2025 budget, which commits $3 million annually to the center’s operation.

In 2021 Morgan State University established a blue-ribbon panel on a STEM research expansion to one day make the university a national leader in academia, according to May.

The panel recommended a center for artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as climate change, and with this center Morgan State is fulfilling the last recommendation from the panel.

Maryland already experiences higher-than-average temperatures, longer heat waves and milder winters due to climate change, making an urgent need for a research center, Morgan

State said in its news release.

“Maryland is a unique state with more coast per unit area than any state in the country, so we need to look at climate change as a uniquely Maryland perspective,” May said in an interview Wednesday.

Although the university has fulfilled the last recommendation, there will be another research center in its future, but there isn’t a timetable yet for that project, May said.