Tony Murphy

Professional biography

Tony started as a Staff Tutor in September 2019. Before that, he worked as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Sheffield Hallam University from 2013, and prior to that, a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Westminster (2008 to 2013). He has also held teaching posts at Oxford, Manchester, and MMU, and worked as a Research Assistant in the Department of Social Policy at LSE.

Tony is module convenor for Criminology, as part of the University of London Worldwide Undergraduate Laws programme. He is also a consultant and tutor for the University of Essex Online, and has designed and updated a number of UG and PG modules, mentored new tutors, and has supervised dozens of MSc dissertations.

Tony has worked at the OU since 2007 in one form or another (a student enquiry and registrations advisor, a faculty assistant, and then a tutor). He is a Chair for DD105, and a Deputy Chair for DD311. He is also a lead Cluster Manager for DD311, and a Cluster Manager for DD105. He previously worked on DD212, DD315, and DD102. In addition to this, he has written book chapters and VLE for DD102 and DD215.

Tony led the organisation and delivery of the 2021 BSC Annual Conference at the Open University. He currently serves on the University Senate. He is departmental communication lead. Between 2023 and 2025 he was The OU's criminology lead for a DfE college partnership project.

Tony has been an external examiner or validation panel member for many institutions - presently external examiner for Birmingham City University, and academic reviewer for Nottingham College.

Tony recently passed his doctoral viva at Oxford, where he researched penal transportation from Britain to Australia. He holds an MSc from Oxford (distinction); an MSc and a BSc (hons) from LSE; several postgraduate research methods qualifications through The Open University; and a PgCert Learning in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

Research interests

Tony's research interests span the Social Sciences broadly, and he has researched and published in areas related to criminological theory; punishment; higher education; social inequalities; and history and crime. His main focus at present, is work on penal transportation. He has written a Criminology textbook for Sage - now in its second edition. He would be interested to hear from potential doctoral students wanting to research in any of the above areas.