Kaitlin M. Murphy is currently Chair of the Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Graduate Interdisciplinary Program and Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She is also faculty in the Human Rights Practice graduate program and affiliated faculty in Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona. Her research and teaching focus on culture and politics with particular interest in intersections between the arts, memory and the afterlife of violence, place, and public thought. She received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies and M.A. in Visual Culture, both from New York University. Murphy is the author of Mapping Memory: Visuality, Affect, and Embodied Politics in the Americas (Fordham UP).

In addition to her academic work, Murphy works as a consultant in a range of areas, including as a researcher, editor, and writer, leading workshops and trainings, and in program evaluation and development.

Prior to joining academia, Murphy worked in public policy. She was program director at Performing Arts Workshop, a Bay Area nonprofit helping young people develop critical thinking, creative expression, and essential learning skills through the arts, and program specialist at the National Economic Development and Law Center, an Oakland-based national research, consulting, and legal organization dedicated to building economic health in vulnerable communities.