| Bunny Cowan Clark | |
| Birth Date: | 8 September 1935 |
| Birth Place: | El Paso, Texas |
| Nationality: | American |
| Fields: | Theoretical physics |
| Workplaces: | Ohio State University |
| Thesis Title: | Optical model partial wave analysis of intermediate energy (0.6 - 1.0 GeV) proton-nucleus elastic scattering |
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| Thesis Url: | https://www.proquest.com/openview/d0c2dcc5932d014826f49410d93d2ee0/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y |
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| Thesis Year: | 1973 |
| Thesis1 Year: | and |
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Bunny Cowan Clark (September 8, 1935 – October 2015) was an American nuclear physicist and a professor of physics at Ohio State University. She attended Kansas State University for both her bachelor's and master's degrees. She earned her doctorate in physics from Wayne State University in 1973.
Clark was born on September 8, 1935, in El Paso, Texas.. She gained her B. S. degree from Kansas State University in 1958, followed by her M.S. degree in 1963 with a thesis about Frequency spectrum of elastic waves in body centered cubic lattices with Basil Curnutte and Robert Herman supervising her research.[1] She then studied with A. M. Saperstein for her doctorate at Wayne State University.
Clark joined the Physics faculty at Ohio State University in 1981, becoming a professor in 1986.[2] Her research was within nuclear theoretical physics. At the 2001 Commencement Address for Ohio State, she spoke candidly about her experience as a woman in physics.
Clark was a fierce advocate for women in physics. She helped create the American Physical Society Committee on Status of Women in Physics.[3] Clark quit accepting graduate students after an incident in 1994, in which a female graduate student was dismissed despite receiving higher scores than some of the male students that were retained.[3]
Clark was well known for her generosity. She worked tirelessly to help young faculty members and graduate students secure funding.[3]
Clarke was the author or co-author of over 60 scientific publications. These included:
She also published about women in physics, including:
Clark was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), after a nomination from the APS Division of Nuclear Physics, "for contributions to relativistic treatment of nucleon scattering from nuclei".[4] [5]
Clark and her husband Tom created the Bunny and Thomas Clark Scholarship Endowment Fund at the Ohio State University Physics Department. The endowment awards scholarships to both undergraduate and graduate students, with an emphasis on underrepresented groups such as women and minorities. After the deaths of her and her husband, her colleague and friend Robert Mercer[6] and the Mercer Family Foundation established the Bunny C. Clark Student Support Fund.