[2] Murphy is well known for her work on regimes of imperceptibility, the ways in which different forms of knowledge become visible or invisible in the scientific community and broader society.
Murphy has published several books, including Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (2006) which won the Ludwik Fleck Prize from the Society for Social Studies of Science,[3][4] Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience (2012), and The Economization of Life (2017).
"[5] She studies the recent history of science and technology with particular attention to economics, capitalism, the environment, and reproduction, with an awareness of colonialism, feminism, gender, race, and queer theory.
[5][11] Landscapes of Exposure: Knowledge and Illness in Modern Environments, which she co-edited with Gregg Mitman and Chris Sellers in 2004, has been called "a foundational volume in bringing historical and social science perspectives to bear on the intersection of place and disease.
"[12] Murphy is known for the concept of regimes of imperceptibility, a framework for examining the ways in which different forms of knowledge become visible or invisible within scientific communities and society.
She traces the history of sick building syndrome (SBS), a diagnosis applied to mass health complaints by office workers for which no cause can be identified.
[15] The identification and acceptance of SBS, an inherently uncertain diagnosis, involves gender, race, and power dynamics within "normal science.
Murphy examines the techniques and epistemologies that have been used to describe and connect ideas of populations and economics in the United States and Bangladesh.