Alexander B. Murphy grew up in the western United States before spending several years in Europe and Japan. He obtained his undergraduate degree at Yale University, studied law at Columbia University, practiced law for a time in Chicago, and then earned a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Chicago. Dr. Murphy is now Professor of Geography and Chair of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon. He is a widely published scholar in the fields of political, cultural, and environmental geography. In the late 1990s, he led the effort to add geography to the College Board's AP® program. He has served as President of the American Association of Geographers and received that organization's highest honor, the lifetime achievement award, in 2014.