Murray has spent her career serving the medically underserved. She has worked in a variety of settings including practicing Occupational Medicine at a Workers Clinic in Canada, residency director for Occupational Medicine at Meharry Medical College, and bureau chief for the Chicago Department of Health under Mayor Harold Washington. She worked as medical director of the federally funded health center serving Cabrini Green Public Housing Project in Chicago. She has been an active member of a wide range of local and national organizations including serving as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for ATSDR, the Board of Scientific Counselors for NIOSH, and the Board of Directors of Trinity Health (a large Catholic Health system).

In 1997, she returned to the Cook County Health System where she served as chief medical officer-primary care; and served as an attending physician in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Cook County Hospital. Murray has worked in leadership roles in many public health organizations including NACCHO’s Health Equity and Social Justice Team, and the national executive board of APHA. During 2011 she served as APHA president. In December 2014, she retired from her position as the chief medical officer for the Cook County Department of Public Health of the Cook County Health & Hospital System, the PHAB accredited and state certified public health department for suburban Cook County.

Today she continues to practice as a voluntary general internist one of county’s health centers and is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health. She serves on many local and national boards including the Chicago based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. She remains passionate about increasing the number of black and Latino health professionals and serves on the Urban Health Program Community Advisory Committee at the University of Illinois.

Murray is devoting the rest of her career to being an enthusiastic, full-time troublemaker. She has been a voice for social justice and health as a basic human right for over 50 years.