Speaker Profile
PMWC LUMINARY AWARD
Developing innovative data science methods to improve patient care through mobile health in chronic disease
Ph.D., Professor of Statistics, Harvard University; Professor of Computer Science, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Radcliffe Alumnae Professor, Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University
Biography
Dr. Murphy is a preeminent data scientist working in Precision Medicine and focused on developing data analysis methods and experimental designs to improve real time multi-stage decision-making in mobile health. She is particularly focused on methods and algorithms that can be employed on wearable devices, to deliver individually tailored treatments. She developed the sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART). SMART designs provide scientists with the empirical tools to build adaptive interventions, treatment rules that dictate whether, how, and when to alter treatment for patients. The decision rules employ variables such as patient response, risk, burden, adherence, and preference. SMARTs are currently being used to build better treatments for a broad range of health problems including cocaine abuse, depression, alcohol abuse, ADHD, autism, and bipolar disorder. Dr. Murphy’s lab is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Prior to arriving at Harvard last summer, Dr. Murphy had been at the University of Michigan since 1998, most recently a distinguished University Professor of Statistics; Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research and Professor of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School. Among her many honors, Dr. was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2016 based on her distinguished and continuing achievements in original science. And in 2013 she was awarded a McArthur Genius Fellowship with a citation for her work developing new methods that evaluate treatment courses for chronic conditions and that allow researchers to test the efficacy of adaptive interventions in clinical trials. Dr. Murphy received a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Louisiana State University, a Masters Degree in Statistics from Tulane University and a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
