Li Murphy is an entomologist, writer, and NSF Graduate Research Fellow whose work sits at the intersection of ecological restoration and the human dynamics that determine whether it succeeds.
Trained in chemical ecology and the study of collective behavior in insects, she combines UAS technology, insect-mounted microcameras, field experiments, and machine learning with ethnographic fieldwork and archival research to examine how pest policy, land management decisions, and federal authority shape community participation and trust across tribal, public, and private lands.
Before graduate school she spent a decade in community science, directing BioBus, a mobile microscopy lab that brought invertebrate life into focus for 25,000 New York City students annually. She serves on the board of Nonhuman Teachers, holds a fellowship with Yale Law School’s Law, Environment & Animals Program, and is a Local Science Partner with the American Geophysical Union. She holds an M.E.Sc. from the Yale School of the Environment, a B.A. from Harvard University, and is pursuing studies in Religion and Ecology at Yale Divinity School.
Originally from Idaho, she surfs badly.