Kiana Murphy
· Assistant Professor of American StudiesBrown University · American Studies
Active 1978–2025
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About
Dr. Kiana T. Murphy is a scholar-artist and Assistant Professor of American Studies at Brown University. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in English, and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in English, Creative Writing, and Sociology. Her work bridges Black speculative aesthetics, Black girlhood studies, Black feminism, visual cultures, and archives of Black women writers. She has been a Huntington Library Mellon Fellow researching in the Octavia Butler archives and is a fellow for the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+). Her scholarly and creative work examines the significance of speculative aesthetics in African American literary and cultural production across the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing on how Black women, queer, and non-binary writers and artists craft techniques of worldbuilding that center Black girl children. Her interdisciplinary project explores mediums such as novels, film, poetry, comics, graphic novels, and archival materials to illustrate how Black girls generate new ethical ways of engaging with cultural forms, and how they challenge traditional understandings of care, relation, resistance, intimacy, friendship, and Black futures. Her creative work, including short fiction and poetry, addresses the effects of gentrification on Black children's imaginations in Washington, D.C. She has contributed to various publications and has been actively involved in Black studies communities, including…
Research topics
- Medicine
- Internal medicine
- Anesthesia
- Endocrinology
- Pathology
- Biology
- Genetics
- Gastroenterology
- Cell biology
- Surgery
Selected publications
Myofibroblast senescence promotes arrhythmogenic remodeling in the aged infarcted rabbit heart
eLife · 2023-05-19 · 10 citations
articleOpen accessProgressive tissue remodeling after myocardial infarction (MI) promotes cardiac arrhythmias. This process is well studied in young animals, but little is known about pro-arrhythmic changes in aged animals. Senescent cells accumulate with age and accelerate age-associated diseases. Senescent cells interfere with cardiac function and outcome post-MI with age, but studies have not been performed in larger animals, and the mechanisms are unknown. Specifically, age-associated changes in timecourse of…
2025-08-21
peer-reviewSenior authorCHEST Journal · 2025-10-01
articleCHEST Journal · 2025-10-01
articleSenior author2023-05-15
peer-reviewOpen accessEx vivo, in vitro, and computational modeling studies indicate a persistence of myofibroblast senescence in the infarct border zone with age which can disrupt conduction and promote arrhythmias via senescent myofibroblast-cardiomyocyte coupling.
Frequent coauthors
- 63 shared
Gideon Koren
- 51 shared
Dmitry Terentyev
The Ohio State University
- 40 shared
Yichun Lu
Lifespan
- 39 shared
David A. Beuther
National Jewish Health
- 39 shared
Mark E. Anderson
New York University
- 38 shared
Robert A. Wise
Pulmonary and Critical Care Associates
- 38 shared
Brett Baggett
Brown University
- 37 shared
Jonathan Granger
Education
B.A., English/Creative Writing/Sociology
University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A., English
University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D., English
University of Pennsylvania
Awards & honors
- Huntington Library Mellon Fellowship (2021-2022)
- Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+) Fellowship…
- National Endowment for the Humanities Institute Fellow (Towa…
- National Endowment for the Humanities Institute Fellow (Reco…
- University of Pennsylvania Predoctoral Fellowship for Excell…
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