Katie Murphy has over fifteen years experience working in the field of early childhood development, education and sustainable development. Katie began her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador, where she lived in a rural community for two years teaching and designing health education and income generation projects. She began working with the IRC in 2005 as the education manager in Chad, supporting Darfurian refugees to build and improve educational and recreational programs for children and youth. Katie served as the Deputy Director of the Global Master’s in Development Practice Secretariat at the Earth Institute at Columbia University and returned to work at the IRC in 2015, and served as the technical lead for the design of the Ahlan Simsim program, which received the inaugural 100&Change award from the MacArthur Foundation. She is currently the co-chair of the ECD Task Team for the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE).

Katie holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University, an MEd from Harvard Graduate School of Education in International Education Policy and an MPH from University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Katie is currently a PhD candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development at the University of Pennsylvania focusing on the implementation, quality measurement, and developmental outcomes for early childhood programs in crisis and conflict settings. She has also conducted research in early childhood development in Central America, Ecuador, India, Lebanon, Kenya, Mexico and Thailand.