the Allied effort to develop the atomic bomb. In 1935 Oppenheimer and Phillips published their description of the Oppenheimer–Phillips process, which explained the behavior of accelerated nuclei of radioactive, "heavy hydrogen" atoms. The Oppenheimer–Phillips effect was one of the early contributions to nuclear physics. Career In an era when few women were working as scientists, Phillips became a leading science educator and spent the majority of her career as a professor of physics. Phillips began teaching during the Great Depression. Initially, she took part-time, temporary positions at Battle Creek College (1928–30) and at Connecticut College for Women (1937–38). Phillips also held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California and at Bryn Mawr College. In early 1936 the American Association of University Women announced that Philips was the recipient of its Margaret E. Maltby award, one of six women to receive its research fellowships for the 1936–37 academic year. Phillips's research focused on application of quantum mechanics to the study of nuclear physics. Prior to accepting a full-time faculty position at Brooklyn College in 1938, Phillips worked as a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. With the exception of a three-year period during World War II, when she taught at the University of Minnesota (1941–44), Phillips spent a decade as a professor of physics at Brooklyn College (1938–52). She also conducted research on a part-time basis at the Columbia University Radiation Laboratory. In 1945, while teaching at Brooklyn College, Phillips helped organize the Federation of American Scientists at a meeting held in Washington, D.C. In 1952 Phillips was summoned to appear before the McCarran Commission, a judiciary subcommittee investigating internal security during the McCarthy era. Although Phillips appeared before a subcommittee hearing in New York and agreed to answer questions relating to her work as a scientist and physics educator, she invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when asked about other topics, including questions about whether she was a member of the Communist party. As a result of her refusal to cooperate with the commission as a matter of principle, Phillips, a highly regarded physics educator, was dismissed from her professorship at Brooklyn College and her part-time position at the Columbia University Radiation Laboratory. She remained unemployed as a college professor for five years. While unemployed, Phillips lived on her modest savings and co-authored two science textbooks: Principles of Physical Science (1957), with Francis Bonner, and Classical