She is a regular contributor to NPR, Marketplace, and the World Vision Report, and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. Murphy has reported on topics that include natural disasters, urban conflict, immigration, indigenous medicine, and the art of love letters. In 2008, she was named a Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism, and spent 2005-2006 as a Fulbright Scholar to Bolivia, where she started freelancing. Murphy has a B.A. in Anthropology from Smith College and frequently calls on anthropology to inform her reporting. She is currently based in South America.