Shatara Murphy serves as a strategic leader, thought partner, project manager and collaborator to foster relationships with University of Pittsburgh and community-based stakeholders that advance the University’s role as an anchor in the region. As assistant vice chancellor, anchor initiatives, she supports the Buy, Build, Hire LOCAL program — Pitt’s commitment to hiring more of its neighbors; helping businesses grow; and awarding more construction, service and purchasing contracts across the region. Murphy also stewards the University’s housing affordability initiatives and its Walk to Work program and serves as a convener and resource partner to nondegree workforce development efforts across Pitt.
Prior to joining the University, Murphy served as community health and employee engagement programs manager at Highmark Health. In this role, she led direct community health initiatives throughout the multi-billion-dollar organization’s footprint, leading company volunteerism and employee engagement programs in 10 regions across four states.
Murphy previously served as deputy director for the Division of Community Affairs within the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Safety. This division emerged from an initiative that she had led to connect Public Safety’s focused deterrent model of policing — a combination of law enforcement, social services and community mobilization as a way to reduce crime — with additional programming, investment and capacity building strategies. This approach keeps residents at the center of what Public Safety does in a way that is positive and impactful.
Murphy earned a Master of Business Administration at Pitt’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. She serves as a board member of ALCOSAN and is the president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Black MBA Association.
