Ann Juanita Morning is an American sociologist and demographer whose research focuses on race. In particular, she has studied racial and ethnic classification on censuses worldwide, as well as beliefs about racial difference in the United States and Western Europe. Much of her work examines how contemporary science—particularly the field of genetics—influences how we conceptualize race.
Education
Morning received her primary- and secondary-school education at the
United Nations International School
The United Nations International School (UNIS) is a private international school in New York City which was established in 1947. Many members of the United Nations staff arriving with young families found unexpected difficulties with the school s ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, where she graduated with an International Baccalaureate in 1986. She then earned her B.A. in Economics and Political Science at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
in 1990. As an undergraduate she also studied in Paris at the
Institut d’Etudes Politiques and
Université de Paris III (Censier-Daubenton) during the 1988–89 academic year. In 1992, she earned a Master’s in International Affairs from
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and then a Ph.D. in Sociology in 2004 at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
, where she was affiliated with the Office of Population Research.
Career
Morning began her career in 1992 as an economist at the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks of the United States. It is responsible for the Second District of the Federal Reserve System, which encompasses the New York (state), State of New York, the 12 norther ...
, where she monitored the external debt burden of a portfolio of less-industrialized nations. In 1994, she joined the
U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer, serving as Vice Consul at the
U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa,
Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...
and completed a temporary tour of duty at the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
in New York.
She left the Foreign Service in late 1995 to become an Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs at her former graduate school,
Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She remained at SIPA until beginning her doctoral studies at
Princeton
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...
in the fall of 1997.
At
Princeton
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...
, Morning was a student at the
Office of Population Research, and her first research projects focused on the uses of racial classification in demographic data like censuses. In particular, she undertook quantitative analyses of the classification of groups that did not easily fit traditional American racial categories, such as mixed-race people and people of South Asian descent. With time, she developed an interest in individuals’ beliefs about the nature of racial difference, using the term “racial conceptualization” to get at the web of their interrelated beliefs about which groups constituted races, what demarcated them from each other, how they emerged, and how an individual’s membership in a racial group could be ascertained. Her doctoral dissertation explored such concepts using qualitative data, and went on to win the
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fi ...
’s Dissertation Award in 2005. In 2011, it was published by the
University of California Press
The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...
as ''The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference''.
While finishing up her doctoral dissertation, Morning worked as a consultant to the
U.S. Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...
, gathering and analyzing data on census racial and ethnic enumeration on nearly 140 nations around the globe. After earning her doctorate in 2004, she joined
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
’s Department of Sociology as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2011. In the fall of 2023, Morning was named James Weldon Johnson Professor of Sociology. Since 2012, Morning has also been an Affiliated Faculty Member at NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus, teaching there regularly, and in 2019 she was appointed the Academic Director a
19 Washington Square North NYUAD’s offices in New York. From 2013 to 2019, she served on the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations. And in 2019, she was a Visiting Professor at th
at
SciencesPo
Sciences Po () or Sciences Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies (), is a public research university located in Paris, France, that holds the status of ''grande école'' and the legal status of . The university's unde ...
in Paris.
Ann Morning continues to work on racial classification, racial conceptualization, and their intersection. A
Fulbright scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...
to the
University of Milan-Bicocca in 2008-09 resulted in her book investigating Italians’ beliefs about ethnic and racial difference, entitled ''An Ugly Word: Rethinking Race in Italy and the United States'', co-authored with sociologist Marcello Maneri of the University of Milan-Bicocca, and published in 2022 by the
Russell Sage Foundation
The Russell Sage Foundation is an American non-profit organisation established by Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, Margaret Olivia Sage in 1907 for “the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.” It was named after her re ...
. She has also explored contemporary debates about the bases of racial membership in the 2017 article “Kaleidoscope.” With demographe
Aliya Saperstein(
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
), she has published research on the racial self-identification of mixed-race Americans that points to the roles of gender and the genealogical locus of multiraciality, meaning how far back in an individual’s family tree it originates.
An important dimension of Morning’s research remains the connection between genetic discourse and everyday concepts of racial difference. She has collaborated with
Alondra Nelson
Alondra Nelson (born April 22, 1968) is an American academic, policy advisor, non-profit administrator, and writer. She is the Harold F. Linder chair and professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independ ...
(deputy director, White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy
The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is a department of the United States government, part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, Executive Office of the President (EOP), established by United States Congres ...
, and former president,
Social Science Research Council
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is a US-based, independent, international nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research in the social sciences and related disciplines. Established in Manhattan in 1923, it maintains a headqua ...
) and
Hannah Brückner (
NYU Abu Dhabi) on the study of socially-desirable reporting of beliefs about biological differences between races, and has repeatedly challenged the notion that racial groups are objective biological entities as opposed to human inventions or social constructs. From 2022 to 2023, Morning served on the
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), also known as the National Academies, is a Congressional charter, congressionally chartered organization that serves as the collective scientific national academy of the Uni ...
'
Committee on the Use of Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry as Population Descriptors in Genomics Research
On September 1, 2023, Morning became th
Arts & ScienceDivisional Dean for Social Sciences and Vice Dean for Global and Strategic Initiatives at NYU.
Awards
*2017 New York University “Golden Dozen” Teaching Award
*2009 Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award from the
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fi ...
Section for Racial and Ethnic Minorities
*2005 Co-Recipient,
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fi ...
Dissertation Award
*2001 Association of Black
Princeton
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...
Alumni Patrice Y. Johnson *80 Memorial Award
Selected bibliography
Books
*·Morning, Ann, and Marcello Maneri. 2022. ''An Ugly Word: Rethinking Race in Italy and the United States.'' New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
*Morning, Ann. 2011. ''The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Selected articles
* Xu, Janet, Aliya Saperstein, Ann Morning, and Sarah Iverson. 2021. “Gender, Generation and Multiracial Identification in the United States.” ''Demography'' 58(5): 1603–1630. (Lead article.)
* Morning, Ann,
Hannah Brückner, and Alondra Nelson. 2019. "Socially Desirable Reporting and the Expression of Biological Concepts of Race." ''Du Bois Review'' 16(2).
* Morning, Ann, and Aliya Saperstein. 2018. “The Generational Locus of Multiraciality and its Implications for Racial Self-Identification.” ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science'' 677(1): 57–68.
* Morning, Ann. 2017. “Kaleidoscope: Contested Identities and New Forms of Race Membership.” ''Ethnic and Racial Studies'' 41(6): 1–19.
*Morning, Ann. 2014. “Does Genomics Challenge the Social Construction of Race?” ''Sociological Theory'' 32(3): 189–207. (Lead article.)
*Gullickson, Aaron, and Ann Morning. 2011. “Choosing Race: Multiracial Ancestry and Identification.” ''Social Science Research'' 40: 498–512.
*Morning, Ann. 2009. “Toward a Sociology of Racial Conceptualization for the 21st Century.” ''Social Forces'' 87(3): 1-26. To be reprinted in ''Terrains/Théorie'', September 2015.
*Morning, Ann. 2008. “Reconstructing Race in Science and Society: Biology Textbooks, 1952-2002.” ''American Journal of Sociology'' 114(s1): S106-S137. Winner, 2009 Oliver Cromwell Cox Article Award from the American Sociological Association Section for Racial and Ethnic Minorities, for the best research article in the sociological study of race and ethnicity.
*Morning, Ann. 2008. “Ethnic Classification in Global Perspective: A Cross-National Survey of the 2000 Census Round.” ''Population Research and Policy Review'' 27(2): 239–272.
*Bolnick, Deborah A., Duana Fullwiley, Troy Duster, Richard S. Cooper, Joan H. Fujimura, Jonathan Kahn, Jay Kaufman, Jonathan Marks, Ann Morning, Alondra Nelson, Pilar Ossorio, Jenny Reardon, Susan M. Reverby, and Kimberly TallBear. 2007. “The Science and Business of Genetic Ancestry Testing.” ''Science'', October 19: 399–400.
*Morning, Ann. 2001. “The Racial Self-Identification of South Asians in the United States.” ''Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies'' 27(1): 61–79.
*Goldstein, Joshua, and Ann Morning. 2000. “The Multiple-Race Population of the United States: Issues and Estimates.” ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' 97(11): 6230–6235.
*Morning, Ann. 2000. “Who Is Multiracial? Definitions and Decisions.” ''Sociological Imagination'' 37(4): 209–229.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morning, Ann
American sociologists
American demographers
Yale University alumni
School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University alumni
Princeton University alumni
Columbia University faculty
1968 births
Living people
American women sociologists
21st-century American women