She was the first Executive Director of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine and served as Study Director for From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Child Development. She has also served as President of the Foundation for Child Development, Director of Child Care Information Services at the National Association for the Education of Young Children, and Congressional Science Fellow on the staff of Congressman George Miller (D-California).
Dr. Phillips has served on the National Board for Education Sciences (US Department of Education), the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child at Harvard University, and the Research Advisory Board of the Committee on Economic Development.
Her research on the developmental impacts of early education – child care, pre-k programs, and Head Start – has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the US Child Care Bureau, and numerous national foundations, as well as recognised at White House conferences and in the State of the Union address. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. She received the 2011 Distinguished Contributions to Education in Child Development Award from the Society for Research in Child Development, as well as the President’s Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award from Georgetown University and the Nicholas Hobbs Award for “devotion to child advocacy/policy” from the American Psychological Association.