However, around 1935, rumors started circulating that there was a romance between Just and Young, and in 1936 they had a huge confrontation. Later that year she was fired, ostensibly because she missed classes. In her words, "The situation here is so cruel and cowardly that every spark of sentiment that I have held for Howard is cold."[2] She used this setback as an opportunity to try again to obtain a Ph.D. In June 1937, she went to the University of Pennsylvania, studying with Lewis Victor Heilbrunn (another scientist she met at the Marine Biological Laboratory) and graduated with her doctorate in 1940.