In addition to her academic work, Murphy works as a consultant in both English and Spanish in a range of areas, including the arts, civil and human rights, transitional justice and community-based reconciliation and post-conflict reconstruction. She is a lifelong dancer and visual artist and loves curating exhibitions and making, seeing, and talking about art. Murphy received her PhD in Performance Studies and MA in Visual Culture, both from New York University, and her BA in Community Studies from the University of California Santa Cruz. She is currently completing an executive education program in Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School.