Katie Murphy

Katie is the Director for Early Childhood Development and Strategic Initiatives at the International Rescue Committee and has over twenty 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 2 years teaching and developing health education and women’s income generation projects. She started working with the IRC in 2005 in Northeastern 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 where she has led the development of IRC’s ECD programming in conflict and crisis settings.  She served as the technical lead for the design of the Ahlan Simsim program, which received the inaugural 100&Change award from the MacArthur Foundation.  Katie has a PhD and an MPH from University of Pennsylvania, an EdM from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.   

 

Despite having lived and worked around the world, Katie is a proud New Haven area native and current resident of the Westville neighborhood of New Haven, where she lives with her three young children (a 7-year old, a 5-year old and a 7 month old, as of March-2023), her husband (YSE Alumnus) and her dog Wally (obedience school drop-out). She loves interacting with and, providing career advice, collaborating with students working on research or programming related to refugees/ crisis and conflict affected children and families, learning from the experiences of Yale students, and sharing her passion for all things New Haven!