Dr. Catherine J. Murphy earned two B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1986, one in Chemistry and the other in Biochemistry. In 1990, she earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin.

From 1990 to 1993, she worked at the California Institute of Technology as a National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow. She joined the University of South Carolina, Columbia, faculty in 1993 and is now the Guy F. Lipscomb Professor of Chemistry.

Professor Murphy has been recognised for both research and teaching as a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, a Research Corporation Cottrell Scholar, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient, and a subsequent NSF Award for Special Achievement.