Karl Ziegler Morgan, known as the father of health physics, was born to Jacob Levi and Elizabeth Virginia Clay (Shoup) Morgan in Enochsville, North Carolina on September 27, 1907. He earned his A.B. (1929) and M.A. (1930) degrees from the University of North Carolina followed by his Ph.D (1934) at Duke University. Morgan chaired the Physics Department at Lenoir Rhyne College until 1943, when he joined the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago to work on the Manhattan Project. He transferred to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1944, where he became director of the Health Physics Division and led studies on the detection of ionizing radiation. He remained in this position until 1972, during which time he also worked as a visiting lecturer at Vanderbilt University (1958-1972) and at the University of Tennessee (1965-1972). He went on to work as a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (1972-1983), as a professor at Appalachian State University (1983-1986), and as a consultant in Atlanta. In his later life, Morgan became politically active and testified on behalf of those who had been injured by radiation, including Navajo uranium miners who were harmed when the Federal Government did not remedy known safety hazards and nearly 1200 individuals who accused the Federal Government of conducting unsafe nuclear testing in Nevada in the 1950s. Morgan died on June 8, 1999 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Morgan was also involved in a number of professional organizations and published several books. He founded the National Health Physics Society and the International Radiation Protection Association and edited the Health Physics Journal. He also co-authored Principles of Radiation Protection: A Textbook of Health Physics and wrote his autobiography, entitled The Angry Genie: One Man's Walk Through the Nuclear Age with trial lawyer Ken M. Peterson. Additionally, he became an authority on the safe limits for radionuclides in the human body and helped set international standards for radiation exposure.