Li Murphy is a Master of Environmental Science student at the Yale School of the Environment and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She is advised by YSE sociologist Dr. Justin Farrell and Texas A&M entomologist Dr. Gregory Sword. She holds a B.A. in Biology and Geology from Harvard University. Her research focuses on the social and ecological dynamics of insect-human interactions. She is currently working on a project about Mormon crickets in the Great Basin.
Li hopes to integrate UAV technology with ecological and geospatial research, combining aerial imaging, collective behavior, and landscape-scale surveys. She has flown UAVs with MIT geology teams in Death Valley to map sedimentary deposits and conducted extensive drone-based fieldwork in Elko County, Nevada, and Routt County, Colorado, to track swarming Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex). Her current methods combine high-resolution aerial surveys, insect-mounted cameras, and VR rigs to investigate how collective movement emerges across terrain. Read more here: https://highplainsstewardship.org/mormon-cricket-virtual-reality-and-my-fieldwork-roadside-reality-show-with-an-audience-of-usually-no-one/
Originally from Idaho, Li has a strong background in community science: she has managed field camps across the Intermountain West, driven a mobile STEM outreach laboratory, and even briefly piloted a planetarium. She holds a Class B Commercial Driver’s License and serves as a Local Science Partner with the American Geophysical Union and on the board of the nonprofit Nonhuman Teachers. Outside of research, Li can often be found jogging, struggling to keep her succulents alive, or surfing badly—but with enthusiasm.
