“The entire school improvement building rests on two essential pillars: academic press and supportive culture.”- Joseph Murphy

Joseph Murphy is the Frank W. Mayborn chair of education at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. He also has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois and The Ohio State University, where he was the William Ray Flesher professor of education.

In public schools, he has served as an administrator at the school, district, and state levels. His most recent appointment was as the founding president of the Ohio Principals Leadership Academy.

He is a past vice president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and an AERA Fellow.

Murphy directed the development of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards for School Leaders and chaired the research panel that produced the revisions to those standards. He led the team that developed the specifications with Educational Testing Service (ETS) for the School Leaders Licensure Assessment (SLLA). He is also one of the four co-creators of the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education.