Alison Murphy

Tomezsko
25 Yearsley Mill Road
Media, PA 19063

Dr. Alison Murphy received her B.S. and Ph.D. in Information Sciences and Technology from Pennsylvania State University and has industry certifications as a project management professional (PMP), six sigma green belt, and agile scrum master.

Dr. Murphy conducts interdisciplinary research on how to improve the usability of health information technology (HIT) for both individuals and organizations through the use of qualitative methods and user experience (UX) design principles. Her Ph.D. dissertation included an 8-month ethnographic field study in a hospital. The study aimed to understand the socio-technical factors that impact collaborative hospital work in order to improve the usability and design of HIT systems for patient-care teams.

Prior to getting her Ph.D., Dr. Murphy worked as an IT project manager at Johnson & Johnson within the pharmaceutical sector supporting research and development, clinical trials, and manufacturing. Her responsibilities included leading the development, validation, implementation, and training of major IT systems and leading the development of company-wide policies for the validation procedures of laboratory IT systems. Based on her experience implementing systems for business partners and seeing firstā€hand the frustration that users had with these systems, Dr. Murphy was inspired to get her Ph.D. and conduct research on how to improve the design of these health information technologies.

Currently, Dr. Murphy enjoys teaching students to think critically about the socio-technical impacts of technology on individuals, organizations, and society. She also enjoys encouraging students to think creatively about IT design and helping them figure out how to turn their academic passions into a fulfilling career.