[1] Previously, she was the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California, Los Angeles[2] where she was also a distinguished professor.

Her research interests include macroelectronics, computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and phase-change materials.

[7][5] Murthy became an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Arizona State University in 1984, but left academia in 1988 to join Fluent Inc., a computational fluid dynamics firm, where she served in various key positions including Manager, New Business Development Group and Manager, R&D.

[8] As of June 7, 2022, Murthy was officially announced as the President of Oregon State University by the board of trustees.

In 2020, Murthy was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering "for the development of unstructured solution-adaptive finite volume methods for heat, mass, and momentum transport."