Joseph Murphy is the Frank W. Mayborn Chair of Education and Associate Dean at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. He has also been a faculty member at the University of Illinois and The Ohio State University, where he was the William Ray Flesher Professor of Education.

In the public schools, Joseph Murphy has served as an administrator at the school, district, and state levels, including an appointment as the Executive Assistant to the Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction in California. His most recent appointment was as the founding President of the Ohio Principals Leadership Academy. At the university level, he has served as Department Chair and Associate Dean.

Joseph Murphy is a past Program Chair for Division A of AERA and a past Vice President of AERA. He was the founding Chair (1994-2004) of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC).

Murphy is the co-editor of the AERA Handbook of Research on Educational Administration (1999) and editor of the National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) yearbook The Educational Leadership Challenge (2002).

His work is in the area of school improvement, with special emphasis on leadership and policy. Joseph Murphy has authored or co-authored 16 books and 2 major monographs in this area and edited another 12 books. His most recent authored volumes include: Understanding and Assessing the Charter School Movement (2002), Leadership for Literacy (2004), Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement (2005), Preparing School Leaders: An Agenda for Research and Action (2006), Turning Around Failing Schools: Leadership Lessons from the Organizational Sciences (2008), and The Educator's Handbook for Understanding and Closing Achievement Gaps (2010). He has also published over 200 articles and book chapters on school improvement and leadership.

Joseph Murphy directed the development of the ISLLC Standards for School Leaders and chaired the research panel that produced the revisions to those standards-ISLLC: 2008. He led the CCSSO team that developed the specifications with ETS for the School Leaders Licensure Assessment (SLLA). Joseph Murphy is also one of the four co-creators of the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education.