Morgan State gets $8.9 million grant to expand research lab, equipment

Morgan State University won an $8.9 million federal research boost that will expand its microelectronics program and build a new molecular biology lab, strengthening the school’s role as a talent pipeline for Baltimore’s science and engineering economy.

President David K. Wilson accepted the funding Monday from Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Morgan’s campus. The money, secured through the fiscal year 2026 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill and awarded through the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is split into $3.4 million for the Center for Education and Research in Microelectronics and $5.5 million to construct and equip a new Molecular Biology Research Laboratory.

Morgan said the microelectronics funding will support advanced equipment and specialized training in semiconductor design and manufacturing inside the Mitchell Engineering Building. The molecular biology lab will serve academic researchers in biological sciences and applied sciences in the School of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, giving students and faculty more room to work in fields tied to biotechnology, health science and chip development.

The expansion fits into a broader push to move Morgan closer to R1 status, the Carnegie Classification used for the nation’s top research universities. In November 2024, Van Hollen, Ben Cardin and Kweisi Mfume announced $5 million in federal funding aimed at helping Morgan reach R1 status by 2030. Morgan has also been building capacity with earlier investments, including $6.8 million in state funding announced in March 2023 for two research centers, among them its microelectronics center.

That earlier state-backed project added a clean room and renovated about 3,600 square feet of laboratory space, with Morgan saying the centers could employ up to 25 new faculty members. In August 2023, the university said it had received $100.8 million in grants, contracts and gifts during fiscal 2023, including $83.3 million in new federal research and training commitments. By August 2025, Morgan said it had reached $104.4 million in research commitments in fiscal 2025, its highest total ever, and projected more than $65 million in research expenditures.

For Baltimore, the payoff could be immediate in the people trained on campus and the jobs that follow. Morgan is one of the city’s major institutional anchors, and a larger research footprint can mean more hiring, stronger faculty recruitment, more student opportunities and deeper ties to nearby employers in biotech, advanced manufacturing and applied science. The federal Microelectronics Commons program, which aims to reduce reliance on foreign microelectronics and build a U.S.-based semiconductor talent pipeline, gives Morgan’s expansion a national policy backdrop as well as a local one.

The grant also reinforces Morgan’s long-term effort to become one of the first HBCUs to earn R1 status, while giving Baltimore another reason to view the university as a driver of research growth, semiconductor training and biomedical science.