Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy is Director of the McCarthy Center and Professor of the Department of Politics. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Master's of Public Affairs degree from the University of Texas-Austin. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame. His professional experience prior to coming to USF includes teaching as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin. Professor Murphy also has worked for the RAND Corporation and at the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, D.C.

Professor Murphy teaches in the areas of public adminstration, public policy and American politics. His research focuses on public management and public policy issue, and he has co-authored several reports and articles on the problems of illicit drug use, the management of drug policy, and the economics of drug selling. In recent years, Murphy's research has focused on education policy. He has collaborated with the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington on projects concerning K-12 teacher recruitment and human resource management issues. More recently he has focused on higher education, completing Financing California's Community Colleges, as well as co-authoring the report Fiscal Realities: Budget Tradeoffs for California Government, for the Public Policy Institute of California, where he is an Adjunct Research Fellow. Professor Murphy's other academic interests include budget and tax policy and African politics.