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In 2003, Dr. Stephanie Murphy joined the research faculty of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine (APOM) at the Oregon Health & Science University.  She also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Comparative Medicine and a faculty appointment within the Neuroscience Graduate Program.  She is a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine and the Director of the APOM Core Animal Laboratories and Training.  Dr. Murphy is also the Associate Director for the Translational Modeling Program for the OHSU Research Center for Gender Based Medicine.

Dr. Murphy’s main research interest and the focus of an R01 grant funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke (NINDS) is on exploring the role of gender and female sex steroids in perioperative stroke risk using a mouse model of anesthetic preconditioning and experimental stroke.  She is also examining how male gender and testosterone act in an age-specific manner during experimental stroke in preconditioned brain. Dr. Murphy was recently awarded a grant from the Portland Alcohol Research Center to explore how moderate ethanol exposure during brain development impacts male vs. female stroke outcomes as adults.  Clinically, she is recognized for her expertise in animal stroke models, rodent surgery and anesthesia and breeding management of genetically engineered mouse colonies.  Dr. Murphy has published more than four dozen articles, reviews and book chapters related to her research and clinical interests. 

Dr. Murphy received her V.M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where she investigated mechanisms by which the dopaminergic system contributes to hypoxic injury in neonatal piglet brain.  She then began a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Comparative Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  During this time she received a postdoctoral fellowship award from the American Heart Association, Mid-Atlantic Affiliate that allowed her to examine the neuroprotective potential of progesterone in cerebral ischemia using a rat focal stroke model.  After completing her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Murphy accepted an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  She also received a National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) K01 award that she applied to clarify the neuroprotective importance of estrogen, alone or in combination with progesterone, in postmenopausal stroke using reproductively senescent female rats.