Her work considers the social and gender impacts of institutional violence in religious organisations, particularly in the Catholic Church.
[8] McPhillips attended the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in 2013.
[11] McPhillips and colleague Jodi Death from Queensland University of Technology, are currently working on a mapping project in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese that will explore the relationships between perpetrators of child sexual abuse and managers in Catholic institutions.
She has been a guest on ABC Radio National's Religion and Ethics program[19] and written for The Conversation, particularly about issues to do with sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
[24] In 2022 McPhillips is co-leader of the research team designing, implementing, and analysing the International Survey of Catholic Women in preparation for a submission for the 2023 Vatican meeting on the Synodal Church.