Morris Kalka earned his Ph.D. in 1975 at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of N.Y.U. under the direction of Louis Nirenberg. His first position was as an Instructor at the University of Utah, where he stayed for the academic years, 1975-77. He was then Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University between 1977 and 1979, at which time he moved to Tulane University, where he has been ever since, except for semester long visits to Harvard University in 1986 and The University of Florence in 1999. He became Professor at Tulane in 1988 and served as Department Chair from 1996-1999 and then again from 2002 to the present.

He has published papers in complex analysis, differential geometry, and partial differential equations with a number of collaborators, including Tom Duchamp of the University of Washington, John Bland of the University of Toronto, and Giorgio Patrizio of the University of Florence. He has a strong interest in undergraduate research and ran an REU program at Tulane for over 10 years.