In 2010, Murphy was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for "pioneering discoveries on protein aggregation in neurodegenerative disease."
[2] After completing her undergraduate degree in 1978, Murphy worked for five years at the Chevron Richmond Refinery before returning to MIT for her PhD in chemical engineering.
[4] In the later 1990s, Murphy collaborated with Laura L. Kiessling to disrupt the aggregation of proteins that form the poisonous plaque deposits found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
[12] In 2010, Murphy was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for "pioneering discoveries on protein aggregation in neurodegenerative disease.
[14] In February 2019, Murphy became the inaugural holder of the Robert Byron Bird Department Chair in Chemical and Biological Engineering.