Maria Helen Murphy graduated with a First Class Honours BCL (International) degree in 2008. Through the UCC International Law programme she studied at Temple University, Philadelphia. She returned to Temple to complete her masters, graduating  magna cum laude and receiving Dean's List Honours.

She is currently researching, under the supervision of Professor Maeve McDonagh, the approach of the European Court of Human Rights in government surveillance cases and how this impacts domestic privacy protection. Her interest in privacy was bolstered through working with the Electronic Privacy Information Centre in Washington, DC.

In 2009 she was awarded the William J Leen Postgraduate Scholarship and the President James Slattery Prize and Medal in Law. In 2010 she was awarded an IRCHSS Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship.

She has worked as a research assistant for Dr. Darius Whelan at UCC and Professor Duncan Hollis at Temple.