Phillippa trained as a laboratory technician in medical microbiology at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. She then moved into research working in Cambridge (Dept of Immunology) and at the Wellcome Labs, UK. She later graduated with a BA(Hons), Open University and an MSc in medical statistics.

Phillippa worked for several years at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit: intestinal infectious disease, vaccine-preventable diseases and trachoma. She came to the UCL Institute of Child Health in November 2002 to work on vision research and is now the biostatistician for the Ulverscroft Vision Research Group.