Susan A Murphy

Susan A Murphy is a statistician whose reinforcement-learning work informs personalized digital health. She earned degrees in mathematics and statistics, was affiliated with Penn State, joined the University of Michigan in 1998, and moved to Harvard in 2017. She developed SMART, a clinical-trial design that tests adaptive treatment and adjusts care to each patient's response, and received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship for related work. By April 2025, her lab had completed a 10-week randomized trial of Oralytics, which uses online reinforcement learning to time oral self-care prompts. As of October 2026, she is Mallinckrodt Professor of Statistics and of Computer Science and associate faculty at Harvard's Kempner Institute.

Now at: Harvard University
Works: 321
Citations: 22,785
h-index: 63
Badges: Loyal

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

1980–1998

Degrees and early appointments

She earns a B.S. in mathematics from Louisiana State University in 1980 and a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of North Carolina in 1989. She is affiliated with Pennsylvania State University from 1989 to 1997, then joins the University of Michigan faculty in 1998.
2000–2003

Program chair at IMS

She serves as program chair for the Institute of Mathematical Statistics from 2000 to 2003.
2013

A MacArthur Fellowship and SMART

As a statistician, she receives the 2013 MacArthur Fellowship for developing a computer program that helps clinicians choose treatment pathways for chronic or relapsing disorders. Her Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (SMART) lets researchers test adaptive interventions and adjust treatment to each patient's response over time; it grows from previous NIMH funding.
2014–2016

Two National Academy elections

She is elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2014 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2016.
2017

Harvard statistics professorship

She joins Harvard's Statistics Department in 2017 as a professor of statistics and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute. Before the move, she holds the H.E. Robbins Distinguished University Professor of Statistics, a professorship in psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School, and a research professorship at the Institute for Social Research.
2023

Associate faculty at Kempner

She becomes associate faculty at Harvard's Kempner Institute in 2023. Her Statistical Reinforcement Learning Lab develops methods for sequential decision-making in health.
By April 2025

An Oralytics trial

By April 2025, her lab has completed a 10-week randomized Oralytics trial to refine the delivery of tooth-brushing prompts. Oralytics uses an online reinforcement-learning algorithm to choose when to send oral self-care prompts in a registered clinical trial.
As of October 2026

Mallinckrodt professor at Harvard

As of October 2026, she is Mallinckrodt Professor of Statistics and of Computer Science and associate faculty at Harvard's Kempner Institute. Her current research focuses on reinforcement learning in health and causal inference.

Career

Since 2023Harvard UniversityAssociate faculty, Kempner Institute
NowHarvard UniversityMallinckrodt Professor of Statistics and of Computer Science
Until 2017University of MichiganH.E. Robbins Distinguished University Professor of Statistics
Until 2017University of MichiganProfessor of Psychiatry
Until 2017University of MichiganResearch Professor
From 2017Harvard UniversityProfessor of Statistics
From 2017Harvard UniversityRadcliffe Alumnae Professor
From 1998University of MichiganFaculty member
1989–1997Pennsylvania State University