John W. Clark, Jr. Bioengineering Department records

John W. Clark, Jr. was born December 24, 1936, in Rochester, New York. Before embarking on his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering at Christian Brothers College in Memphis, Tennessee, he served for three years in the U.S Marine Corps. He began his graduate work at Case Institute of Technology, earning an M.S. in electrical engineering in 1965, followed by a Ph.D. in engineering at Case Western Reserve University in 1967.

He served as a Research Associate at Case Western Reserve in 1967-68 and then in 1968 was appointed an Assistant Professor at Rice University in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He advanced through the ranks at Rice, becoming a full professor in 1979. While teaching and supervising graduate theses, he conducted research in neural and cardiac electrophysiology, mathematical modeling of biological systems, applying signal processing methods to biological systems, nonlinear system dynamics, and electromagnetic field theory.

In 1989 Dr. Clark initiated discussion with five Rice colleagues, in chemical engineering, mechanical engineering and materials sciences, biology, physics, and biochemistry, and a representative of Baylor College of Medicine, on the formation of an interdepartmental program, which became the Department of Bioengineering. In 1992 he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Houston Society for Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and in 1993 he became a Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Engineering in Medicine and Biology at the National Academy of Sciences. In 2005 he was elected a Fellow by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

At the time of his death at 80 in August 2017, Dr. Clark held professorships in both the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Bioengineering Department in his forty-ninth year of teaching at Rice.