HICAGO, Nov. 17 (AP) - Melba Phillips, a University of Chicago physicist and a pioneer in science education who trained under J. Robert Oppenheimer and was thrown out of work for years during the McCarthy era, died on Nov. 8 in Petersburg, Ind. She was 97.
At a time when there were few women working as scientists, Dr. Phillips was a leader among her peers. She received her doctorate in 1933 from the University of California at Berkeley and was one of the first doctoral students of Oppenheimer, who later led the team that built the first atomic bomb.
In 1935, Dr. Phillips and Oppenheimer offered an explanation for what were then unexpected reactions of different kinds of subatomic particles. That explanation, the Oppenheimer-Phillips effect, is "considered one of the classics of early nuclear physics," said Stuart Rice, a University of Chicago physicist who studied under her.
In the 1940's, she helped to organize the founding of the Federation of American Scientists at a meeting in Washington.
"This was a very important meeting because it forged a strong bond within the entire scientific community, and we went to work on civilian control of atomic energy," said Francis T. Bonner, a longtime friend and a professor emeritus of chemistry at Stony Brook University, part of the State University of New York.
Much of Dr. Phillips's career was devoted to education.
She developed training for teaching physics, led an effort to improve the preparation of physics teachers and helped write two textbooks. She worked at Brooklyn College and the Columbia University Radiation Laboratory but lost both jobs in the 1950's after refusing to testify before a Senate subcommittee investigating accusations of Communist activities.
In 1966, she was the first woman named president of the American Association of Physics Teachers and was later given the first Melba Newell Phillips Award, which was created in her honor.
After helping direct a teacher-training institute at Washington University, Dr. Phillips joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1962. There, she led an effort to teach physical science courses to nonscience majors. In 1972 she retired, but continued to teach at a number of schools.
Dr. Phillips had no immediate survivors.
