She includes arts-integration in both her teaching and research capacities. For example, she has written about refugee children’s use of photography to explain and understand their lives in a new country as well as children in post-war Uganda using drawings and paintings to represent those experiences which they cannot say in words. She has also had her USFSM students define challenging concepts in critical pedagogy using arts media. Dr. McBrien presents her work nationally and internationally, the most recent being at the International Consortium for Social Development held in Kampala, Uganda. She serves the Center for PAInT as the chair of its international component, INPAInT.