Dr. Michael Murphy

Education: 
BA, Queen’s University
BSc, Queen’s University
MBA, York University
PhD, McMaster University

Areas of Expertise: 

Michael is a professor in the RTA School of Media and is also the principal investigator of the AccessFabrik Lab. He is the former Director of the Rogers Communication Centre. His is also a professor in the York-Toronto Met joint graduate program in Communication and Culture. He teaches courses at the graduate and undergraduate level in Advanced Communication Technology, Radio and Audio Production, Advanced Audio Theory, and Broadcasting History. He also supervises graduate student research in the field of Communication, Culture and Media.   Michael’s expertise is in digital technology applications in media and broadcasting. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was employed by Northern Telecom’s Digital Switching Division and was involved in the development and deployment of some of the first products to use digital techniques to convert analog audio for telephone applications, including cellular telephony and ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Networks). Michael is also a musician (voice, oboe, piano and organ) and he studied electronic music composition at Queen’s and McGill Universities.   As a Researcher, his work over the last twenty years has been in developing new digital applications for media production and delivery. In 1997, his research team developed the world’s first multi-terabyte Web server for media applications integrating nearline technologies, and he was selected in 2002 by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) as one of Canada’s “thirty-three unique individuals whose research has impacted the quality of life of Canadians and continues to shape our future.” In 2001–2002, he was a Visiting Research Scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, and in 2008 – 2009 he was a Visiting Professor at the Hochschule der Medien (Stuttgart Media University). He regularly lectures on digital media applications in academic environments and has delivered keynote talks at institutions in the USA, Europe and Asia.  

    In 2012, he undertook a research sabbatical to document the significant work of the unknown Canadian inventor (Frank) Morse Robb, who not only developed the world’s first electronic organ in the 1930s, but also invented “sampling”, a technology that is now fundamental to the way we digitally produce all forms of music.