Susan Murphy

Susan Murphy is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Statistics and of Computer Science at Harvard University, affiliated with the Kempner Institute. Her research focuses on statistical reinforcement learning and adaptive interventions in healthcare, particularly Just-in-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAIs) delivered via mobile health (mHealth) technologies. Her work emphasizes developing data-driven algorithms for personalized treatment strategies and optimizing clinical trial designs.

Her primary affiliations include the Harvard Statistics Department, Harvard Computer Science Department, and the Kempner Institute. Research funding comes from institutions like the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Key contributions include pioneering micro-randomized trials (MRT) to evaluate adaptive interventions and developing frameworks for JITAIs. She has been recognized with a MacArthur Fellowship (2013), election to the National Academy of Medicine (2014), and the National Academy of Sciences (2016).

Her lab collaborates with groups like d3Lab and mDOT to translate research into practice, focusing on digital health applications for chronic disease management and behavioral health. Ongoing work includes optimizing algorithms for real-time treatment delivery and evaluating intervention fidelity in clinical settings.