Jim Murrell earned a bachelor's degree in physics from North Carolina Central University in 1965 and became the first African American scientist hired at the Research Triangle Institute, in Research Triangle Park, NC soon afterward. A year or two later he was hired by John Cassel as Director of Computing and Data Management in the UNC Department of Epidemiology, becoming the first African American professional employed in the department.
During his years in the Department of Epidemiology, Mr. Murrell devised the first automated Medical Records for the State of North Carolina, worked on numerous epidemiological studies, was a consultant to the World Health Organization, and authored a chapter "Data Processing and Computer Use" in the Abdel Omran's textbook Community Medicine in Developing Countries (Springer, 1974). During this period, Mr. Murrell also delivered numerous research papers to the American Public Health Association, received an M.S. degree in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina in 1974 and completed course work, including an honors dissertation, toward a PhD in Biostatistics in 1979.
Mr. Murrell became Director of Research for Systems Research and Development Corporation in 1979. While working there, he authored a "Research and Analytical Proposal for Measuring Emissions from Internal Combustion Engines for the Environmental Protection Agency." This document led way to the National Emissions Testing program for automobiles. He additionally did noise abatement research for the FAA for Dulles and National Airports in Washington DC. During this same time, he was co-author of "The Status of Children and Families", a White House document commemorating 1980 as the International Year of the Child. Other research included the development of standards for individuals with developmental disabilities for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now U.S. H.H.S.) and an evaluation of the Urban Rat Control Program for the same agency.
Mr. Murrell returned to active computing as Computational Team Leader in the Office of the Governor during the Jim Hunt administration of the early 1980s. He became a consultant to the US Census bureau and contributed analytical software to that agency for analyzing compressed census files and later was part of the advisory team for the TIGER system developed by the US Census Bureau.
Upon leaving NC State Government, Jim returned to the University of North Carolina, where he became Manager of Web Systems and established the first infrastructure for www.unc.edu. During the same time, he also established www.nccu.edu as a way of giving back to his undergraduate institution. Jim taught numerous courses including C, C++, Oracle, Perl, Web Programming and Unix Systems as an evening faculty at Durham Technical Community College. Two of his interns established the first website at Durham Technical Community College under his supervision.