Dr. David S. Murphy received the 2007 Sydnor Professorship Award for Teaching Excellence in Business at Lynchburg College, an award voted on by students.
A member of the Virginia Society of CPAs, Dr. Murphy was selected in 2006 by the VSCPA membership as one of the best accounting educators in the commonwealth. He is an expert in fighting corruption.
Prior to joining the LC faculty as an associate professor of accounting in 2002, Dr. Murphy did anti-corruption work overseas. In 1996-97, he was the academic director of a U.S. AID-funded anti-corruption graduate program in Bolivia. In 1999, he served as the accounting reform adviser to the Minister of Finance in Kyrgyzstan and then as Chief-of Party for the U.S. AID Accounting Reform Project in Uzbekistan and regional director of education. In 2000, he became the senior anti-corruption adviser to the Controller General of Peru. Most recently, he has consulted as the anti-corruption adviser to the government of Bulgaria.
Dr. Murphy earned his Ph.D. and M.B.A. degrees in accounting at Washington State University and his B.A. from Central Washington University. He has been licensed as a CPA since 1981 and earned his CFP certification in 1987 and CGFM certification in 1996. He received a Fulbright Fellowship in 1993 to conduct faculty development workshops at several universities in Lima, Peru. Dr. Murphy held a joint appointment in accounting and management information systems at the University of Idaho and served as associate professor of accounting and faculty fellow in the School of International Studies at Oklahoma State University. He is author of more than twenty articles published in academic journals, has presented papers at numerous conferences in the United States and Latin America, and is the co-author of an accounting textbook.
He has served Lynchburg College as vice chair and chair of the College Planning and Resource Committee, member of the Insurance Task Force and the Curriculum/ Workload Taskforce, Accounting Program coordinator, and on numerous committees within the School of Business and Economics. He also spent three years as a member of the Board of Regents of the Association of Certified Fraud Specialists and as chair of the organization’s National Education Committee. As a member of the International Development Committee, a national committee of the Association of Government Accountants, he strives to improve government accounting practices worldwide.
Dr. Murphy enjoys traveling and hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains with his wife Rosario, and their three sons, Geoffrey, Ernest, and Brandon. He and his wife also enjoy scuba diving.
The Sydnor award is named for C. Raine Sydnor Sr., a distinguished LC alumnus and a founder of the College’s Board of Overseers, and has been given annually since 1989.