By Adam LoBelia

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, many Iraqi scientists have found themselves without work. It is the job of one former University professor to find these scientists work outside the field of weaponry.

Carleton Phillips, a mammalian biology professor, recently returned home after working for the Iraqi Nonproliferation Programs Foundation (INPF) and will share his experiences with students and faculty on Feb. 16.

Sent at the request of the U.S. State Department, “He works for the State Department, sort of like a consultant,” Professor Dorothy Puma of the biology department, said. He is a facilitator for helping scientists who have been involved with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s regime to make sure that they have things to do now that the regime is no longer there.”

Due to Phillips’ efforts and the hard work of many others, Iraqi scientists with expertise in physics, biology and other sciences will not find themselves working for other countries, or potentially hostile groups. Instead their talents will be focused on non-military efforts, to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and assist its economic and scientific development.

The exact efforts of the INPF has been to rebuild labs damaged and destroyed by the war, retrain scientists in ethics and writing research papers and invest in travel groups and scientific programs to give the scientists work.

Phillips assignment put him with Iraqi scientists in Baghdad, where he had to experience the same dangers that Iraqis and American personnel face.

Phillips is currently a biology professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. In addition to teaching at the University, he is also a recipient of the University’s Distinguished Faculty Award. He has visited countries other than Iraq, including the former Soviet Union, where he performed research around Chernobyl, in what is now Ukraine. He also researched in Latin America, Central Asia and Finland and has presented lectures about biology around the world.