Kathleen Murphy

Managing Researcher

Kathleen M. Murphy is a managing researcher in the Workforce program area at AIR. She leads the Workforce Development & Economic Pathways Portfolio Area of AIR’s Employment and Economic Opportunity Program (EEOP) Area. In that role she oversees two practice areas: the Workforce Policy and Systems hub, while also serving as lead of the Disability hub. She participates in EEOP’s leadership team with two other portfolio leads that support the EEOP Vice President, engaging in strategic planning, coordination of eminence building activities and identifying hiring needs. 

Dr. Murphy is principal investigator for AIR’s Center on Knowledge Translation for Disability and Rehabilitation Research, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). In this capacity, she and her AIR colleagues organize a broad set of research, training, dissemination and technical assistance activities to support the knowledge translation needs of all NIDILRR grantees. She also led a research portfolio of surveys and training related to cancer and employment in collaboration with the Southwest Americans with Disabilities Act (SWADA) Center. She is also lead evaluator of the National Deaf Center on Postsecondary Outcomes. She was vice president of NARRTC (formerly known as the National Association of Rehabilitation Research and Training Centers) and currently serves on its Executive Committee.

Dr. Murphy has been an assistant research professor at Baylor University and a visiting assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Murphy was an I.I.E. Fulbright Scholar at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico, and a Rotary International Scholar at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

Related Publications:

Frentzel, E., Geyman, Z., Nye, C., Rasmussen, J., Lapina Salazar, A., Murphy, K.M., & Scalia, E. (2021.) Pre-employment transition services for students with disabilities: A scoping review. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 54(2):103-116.

Fong, C.J., Taylor, J., Berdyyeva, A., McClelland, A., Murphy, K.M., & Westbrook, J.D. (2021). Interventions for improving employment outcomes for persons with autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review update. Campbell Systematic Reviews.

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Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin; M.A., Theology, Graduate Theological Union-Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; B.A., History and Literature, Harvard University

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