Engineering education professor receives Woman of the Year honor

During her Ph.D., Murphy worked with a program designed to assist undergraduate students who had excelled in high school but came from underperforming schools that may not have fully prepared them for the rigors of college. Murphy was enraptured by her students’ stories about the challenging environments in which they grew up. This connected her to a research interest to uncover the academic needs of students. 

Murphy began working at the University of Oklahoma in the mathematics department, which had a research in undergraduate mathematics education track. It was there that Murphy met Teri Reed, who is now assistant vice president for research development at UC and professor of chemical engineering. They began to collaborate on research projects, with their first joint project studying women in engineering. They have joined forces many times since, often with a focus on research in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion.

After a stint as a professor at Northern Kentucky University, Murphy accepted an offer in 2014 for a temporary position at the National Science Foundation as a program director coordinating research funding in the Division of Undergraduate Education.

Following the NSF job, Murphy came to UC in 2017 where her longtime collaborator Teri Reed was now working. Murphy’s experience was a good fit for UC’s pioneering Department of Engineering Education. Murphy and Reed are continuing to work together on projects that Reed spearheads, including efforts related to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, of which UC is a founding member.   

The department has a focus on enhancing the first-year engineering undergraduate program, but they are also developing graduate programs in engineering education to produce the next generation of professors who would be prepared to do research on the teaching and learning of engineering. Murphy is the chair of that committee. 

Although research is an important part of being a professor, Murphy finds daily motivation in the classroom with her students. 

“I really want to do the best I can by my students,” Murphy said. “There is a mindset in teaching that I think is important, I try to walk into the classroom ready for the kinds of questions I think the students will have or the places they are likely to get stuck and a plan for how to help them get unstuck.”