Our Team

Dr. P. Karen Murphy is the Associate Dean of Research and Outreach for the College of Education at The Pennsylvania State University, where she is also a Distinguished Professor of Education. Her areas of expertise include educational research, psychology, beliefs and special education early intervention.

Dr. Murphy’s research, funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation, focuses on the role of critical-analytic thinking in the processing of disciplinary content. Her research focuses on co-developing and implementing approaches like Quality Talk, with teachers and students, to maximize the effects of reasoning and classroom discussion on students’ comprehension and content-area learning. Dr. Murphy’s work with discussion-based and student-driven education aims to revolutionize the way we understand thinking and learning in a classroom setting.

Dr. Murphy is also involved in several ongoing international research collaborations in Taiwan, Switzerland, and South Africa. These international projects deal with enhancing students’ thinking and reasoning through classroom discussions about, around, and with text.

In addition to her research, Dr. Murphy is the Senior Editor of Contemporary Educational Psychology, a peer-reviewed academic journal. She formerly served as the editor of the Review of Educational Research, executive editor of the Journal of Experimental Education and the Associate Editor of Learning and Instruction.