
Director of the CRI
Sean J. Morrison is the director of the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute (CRI) at UT Southwestern and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He holds the Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics and the Kathryne and Gene Bishop Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Research. Dr. Morrison completed a B.Sc. in biology and chemistry at Dalhousie University (1991), a Ph.D. in immunology at Stanford University (1996), and a postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiology at Caltech (1999). From 1999 to 2011, Dr. Morrison was a professor at the University of Michigan, where he directed its Center for Stem Cell Biology. His laboratory studies the mechanisms that regulate stem cell function in adult tissues and the ways in which those mechanisms get hijacked by cancer cells to enable tumor formation.
Among other awards, Dr. Morrison received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2003) and a MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging (2009). He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (2018) and the National Academy of Sciences (2020). Dr. Morrison served as the President of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (2015–2016) and has been active in public policy issues surrounding stem cell research, testifying before the U.S. Congress, and serving as a leader in the successful “Proposal 2” campaign to protect and regulate stem cell research in Michigan’s state constitution.
Board of Directors
Christopher J. Durovich
President and Chief Executive Officer, Children’s Health
Robert A. Chereck
Daniel K. Podolsky, M.D.
Steve Gruber
Stephen Skapek, M.D.
David W. Biegler
Retired Chairman, Southcross Energy Partners
Michael Serber
Joan Conaway, Ph.D.
Sean Morrison, Ph.D.
W. P. Andrew Lee, M.D.
Scientific Advisory Boards
Internal
Michael Brown, M.D.
Eric N. Olson, Ph.D.
Julio Perez-Fontan, M.D.
Helen H. Hobbs, M.D.
David Russell, Ph.D.
W. P. Andrew Lee, M.D.
External
Stuart H. Orkin, M.D.
Charles L. Sawyers, M.D.
Gail Mandel, Ph.D.
Owen N. Witte, M.D.
Lewis C. Cantley, Ph.D.
Jonathan A. Epstein, M.D.
Administration

Teresa Hui, M.B.A., M.S.

Katie Regan, M.A.

Misti Wheat, B.S.

Ashlei Johnson, B.S.
