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Story By Norah Schroder
Dr. Shannon Murphy has worked as a professor at the University of Denver for 14 years. [Photo courtesy of Shannon Murphy]
Dr. Shannon Murphy’s laboratory and office are tucked away on the fourth floor of Boettcher Center. After journeying up many levels of stairs, the entrance is marked by walls covered with posters from past research projects.
As I walked in, Murphy was answering emails in her office and students could be heard chatting in the lab.
Murphy has been working at the University of Denver (DU) since 2010. She started as an assistant professor but has now obtained tenure as a full professor.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for professors in 2023 was $84,380 per year. From 2023 to 2033 employment is expected to increase by 8%, which is greater than the 4% increase expected for all occupations.
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Murphy described her journey to academia as nontraditional. As an undergraduate, she took many different classes before finding her favorite topic — ecology and evolutionary biology.
“I liked it because it allowed me to study things with chemistry and physics and a lot of statistics, so I didn’t really have to narrow down my field of interest,” said Murphy.
Murphy graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a Bachelor of Arts in ecology and evolutionary biology.
“On graduation day my mom asked me what was next, and I realized I hadn’t planned ahead at all,” said Murphy.
Murphy heard about a lab technician position and applied for the job.
“I really liked being a tech, but I didn’t like that I never got to decide what we were doing. So that was really the first time I started thinking about going back to school to get a higher education degree, like a PhD or a master’s,” said Murphy.
Murphy went on to get a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University in 2005. As part of her graduate degree, she conducted research in Alaska.
“I actually, for most of my graduate career, I felt like I was kind of a failed researcher,” said Murphy.
Murphy explained that a series of natural disasters ruined her experiments for three years.
“I started wondering in my fourth year of grad school, maybe this is not my future, but I had some mentors who told me that actually you kind of learn the most through failure. And that also will help you to become a better mentor because you’ll have been there,” said Murphy.
During Murphy’s last field season, she was finally able to record her data. This data was the first real-life evidence of the enemy free space theory, and the peer-reviewed article she wrote on the topic won her the LaMont C. Cole Award at Cornell University, which is awarded to the author of an outstanding paper.
In graduate school, Murphy also began working as a teaching assistant (TA). Murphy credits this time as the beginning of her paid teaching career.
“I realized I really liked teaching, and I liked doing research. The only place that I was aware of that you could do both teaching and research was in academia. I realized, maybe this is the home for me,” said Murphy.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, most professors need a PhD, but sometimes a master’s degree is sufficient. In science fields, most professors have postdoctoral research experience. Working as a TA is also common as it provides experience teaching.
Murphy worked as a TA for four years during graduate school and then completed two different postdoctorates before working as a professor. She feels there are several elements important to success in the field of ecology and biology. The first is being organized and showing up on time.
“I would say in my field the people who I feel like are really successful are people who can think outside the box and have unique ways of solving a problem. But I also feel like the groups of people that I see succeeding the most in my field are really diverse groups, so the ability to work with others in diverse groups is pretty important too,” said Murphy.
While at DU, Murphy has worked with 90 undergraduate students and 13 graduate students in her lab. She explained she wanted to provide the support that helped her in academia and also act as a role model for female students.
“I never once had a female mentor. Even when I was in grad school, I think probably 80% of the department was white men. So, I think it’s cool that we [the female ecology and biology faculty at DU] are providing the example of people who can be successful and also have a family life,” said Murphy.
Murphy explained that DU offers an opportunity to engage in both research and teaching. Most days she spends a lot of time answering emails and meeting with students. She tries to spend an hour each day writing and analyzing data. When she is teaching less, she aims to spend six hours a day writing. She attributes her 74 peer-reviewed articles to her frequent writing.
“I love writing. It’s just one of my favorite things to do, to sit down with a cup of coffee and just put ideas on a page. I love teaching, but I can only do it like a quarter here, a quarter there. I need a good mix of activities in my life, so being a research professor that also teaches is the perfect combination for me,” said Murphy.
