How a Cornell Chemical Engineer Became a Federal Judge, and the Lessons Learned Along the Way
In this talk, Judge Murphy will trace his path from Olin Hall to the halls of justice, and share a few insights he’s had over the years.  Loosely under that umbrella, he’ll cover topics like: (i) how the law works (from the perspective of an engineer); (ii) careers in law; (iii) unexpected connections among the fields of law, science, and engineering; (iv) some of the challenges facing our legal system at the intersection of law and science; and, of course, (v) why an education in chemical engineering really does prepare you for anything.  For more information, view the Cornell events calendar listing.

About the Speaker
John Murphy (ChemE ’99) is a judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.  Before being appointed to the court in 2022 by President Biden, Judge Murphy was an intellectual property litigation partner at the law firm of Baker & Hostetler in Philadelphia, where he focused on patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret disputes, as well as advising clients on the development and strategic business uses of intellectual property.  He represented plaintiffs and defendants in about equal number in district courts around the country and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as the U.S. International Trade Commission, arbitration panels, and mediators.  His representations involved commercial packaging, orthopedic medical devices and materials, chemical and biological therapeutics, tablet and telephone hardware, semiconductor manufacturing, and cryptographic software, among others.  Judge Murphy teaches patent litigation and strategy as an adjunct professor at both Villanova Law School and Rutgers Law School.  He is co-author of the fifth edition of Patent Litigation and Strategy (West 2017) along with Federal Circuit Chief Judge Kimberly A. Moore and Professor Timothy Holbrook.  Judge Murphy also clerked for Chief Judge Moore early in his career.  He graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology and an active member of the Harvard Mediation Program.  Before that, he obtained a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Caltech.  There, he worked in the laboratory of Professor Mark E. Davis on a thesis entitled “Methods for Collection and Processing of Gene Expression Data.”  Judge Murphy spent four happy years studying at Cornell University, graduating with B.S., summa cum laude, in Chemical Engineering in 1999.  He is about to celebrate his twenty-second wedding anniversary with Katharine Aichele Murphy, a fellow Cornell graduate.  They are the proud parents of Sarah, Eleanor, and William Murphy, and thrilled that Sarah is on her way to Cornell to join the class of 2028.