Evelyn Murphy

Evelyn Murphy (born May 14, 1940) was the 67th Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1987 to 1991, being the first woman in the history of the state to hold a constitutional office. She is now the president of The WAGE Project, a United States nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating wage discrimination against women; a resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, and a corporate director.

Early life and education

Murphy was born in 1940 in Ancón, Panama to American citizens. Her father was stationed with the army in the Panama Canal Zone, where her mother joined him in 1939. At the age of six weeks, Murphy was brought to her grandmother's home in Massachusetts. She continued to hold dual U.S.-Panamanian citizenship until the age of 19, when she took the oath of U.S. citizenship in Washington, D.C.

Murphy earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Duke University, a master's degree in economics from Columbia University, and a doctorate in economics from Duke University. She was a fellow at the Institute of Politics of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.