Eric Murphy
Past Faculty Associate of Undergraduate Research
786-1626, afesm@uaa.alaska.edu
Eric Murphy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences.  He received a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Washington State University and is currently the chair for UAA’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.  Dr. Murphy has research and teaching interests in three related areas: a) behavior analysis, including classical and operant conditioning, b) behavioral pharmacology, and c) behavioral neuroscience.  He and his undergraduate collaborators are currently studying the variables that regulate alcohol self-administration in laboratory rats.  Other research projects include identifying the brain mechanism(s) responsible for reflexive habituation and determining the extent that habituation is involved in modulating the effectiveness of repeatedly-presented reinforcers. Eric has a long standing interest in mentoring undergraduates in his laboratory and hopes to enhance undergraduate research campus wide.