Ian Morris

Ian Matthew Morris (born 27 January 1960) is a British historian, archaeologist, and Willard Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Morris was born on 27 January 1960 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. He attended Alleyne's High School, a comprehensive school in Stone, Staffordshire. He studied at the University of Birmingham, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1981. 

He completed a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree at the University of Cambridge in 1985. His doctoral thesis was titled "Burial and society at Athens, 1100-500 BC". From 1987 to 1995, he taught at the University of Chicago. Since 1995, he has been at Stanford. Since joining Stanford, he has served as Associate Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Chair of the Classics Department, and Director of the Social Science History Institute. 

He was one of the founders of the Stanford Archaeology Center and has served two terms as its director. He has published extensively on the history and archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean and world history. He also won a Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2009. Between 2000 and 2007, he directed Stanford's excavation at Monte Polizzo, Sicily, Italy.

He has been awarded research fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Hoover Institution, National Endowment for the Humanities, Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., and Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and has been awarded honorary degrees by De Pauw University and Birmingham University. 

In 2012 his work was the subject of a lengthy profile in the Chronicle of Higher Education. He delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Princeton University in 2012. In his new book, Ian Morris plans to develop his views on the first-millennium BC transformations (the shift from religion-based power to bureaucratic and military one and the rise of Axial thought).