Evelyn Murphy

Evelyn Murphy, author of Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men and What To Do About It, is the founding President of the WAGE (Women Are Getting Even) Project, Inc. a national organization dedicated to eliminating the gender wage gap, and a Resident Scholar of the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University. In response to the publication of the book in October 2005, she has already participated in more than 200 events, including radio and television on local and nationally syndicated stations.

Working as an economist, public official, politician, corporate director, and frequent public speaker, Evelyn Murphy has spent her professional life bringing urgent issues into public debate. In the late 1970s, as the Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs, she led the state's fight-all the way to the US Supreme Court-to stop the US Interior Department from allowing oil and gas companies to drill in the rich fishing grounds of Georges Bank. This became the first-ever successful attempt to block energy exploration in the outer continental shelf. Under Governor Michael Dukakis, Dr. Murphy was the state's Secretary of Economic Affairs, where she created economic policies that set the state's course for economic prosperity in the 1980s. In 1986, Murphy was elected Massachusetts' lieutenant governor-the first woman in the state's 210-year history to hold statewide office. Prior to that, no woman had been elected Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, Auditor or US Senator in seemingly liberal Massachusetts. In political life, she has been active in influencing public policy and elected officials right to the very top of American government: she has testified before Congress, worked frequently with the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, and dealt with White House staff in the Carter and Clinton administrations.

After campaigning for governor in 1990, Dr. Murphy became a corporate director of a number of companies, including Bay State HMO; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts; Flighttime; the Shawmut National Banks of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut; and Fleet National Bank, Fleet Mortgage Company, and Fleet Credit Card Corporation. She also served as an executive vice president at Massachusetts Blue Cross/Blue Shield, where she directed public, legislative and media relations, and was founder and president of BCBSMA's Healthcare and Policy Institute. Today she is a corporate director of Citizens Energy Corporation and SBLI USA Mutual Life Insurance.

Evelyn Murphy's civic activities are many. For the last ten years she has co-chaired the annual fundraiser for Rosie's Place, a homeless women's shelter, an event always attended by 1200-1500 Bostonians. She has chaired the Women's Leadership fundraiser for the United Way of Massachusetts Bay. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of The Commonwealth Institute, a member of the Visiting Committee of Boston University's School of Public Health, Director of The Polaris Project and Honorary Chair of the Lost Coin Women's Fund. She is a member of the International Women's Forum and The Boston Club. She is a frequent speaker as well as a guest commentator or television analyst on politics, business, health care, economics, and women's issues. In her spare time, she has trained for and run the Boston Marathon five times is a life-long avid fan of the Boston Red Sox.

Dr. Murphy received her B.A. in mathematics at Duke University, an M.A. in economics from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in economics at Duke University. She has been a visiting fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She holds honorary degrees from ten colleges and universities and is the recipient of over one hundred awards, including the Amelia Earhart award of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union and the Distinguished Service Award of the National Sierra Club.