Janet Howell Clark

Janet Howell Clark (January 1, 1889 – February 12, 1969) was an American physiologist and biophysicist.

Early life and education Clark was born Janet Tucker Howell on January 1, 1889, in Baltimore, Maryland, the eldest of three children and the daughter of Anne Janet Tucker and William Henry Howell. Her father was a professor of physiology at Johns Hopkins University and director of Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. She attended Bryn Mawr School, a Quaker school in Pennsylvania, graduating top of her class in 1906 and winning a scholarship to attend Bryn Mawr College where she majored in physics. Her dissertation, done under Joseph Sweetman Ames and J. A. Anderson, was the statement of the fundamental law of the diffraction grating.

Academic career After earning her PhD, she worked as a lecturer in physics for two years at Bryn Mawr College, beginning in 1914.

In 1935 Clark became the headmistress of the Bryn Mawr School after the Department of Physiological Hygiene and the Department of Chemical Hygiene at Johns Hopkins University were combined under the leadership of Elmer McCollum. While she was headmistress, the Bryn Mawr School moved from the center of Baltimore to the countryside then just outside the city. While at the University of Rochester, Clark established a separate faculty for the university's Women's College. She also continued her research in biophysics, studying the effect of radiation on breast tumors in mice under a grant from the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund.

After her retirement from the University of Rochester, Clark moved back to Baltimore and lectured on environmental medicine and continued her research. She worked as a member of the Photobiology Committee of the Division of Biology and Agriculture of the National Research Council. She was also active in the American Association of University Women, the American Physiological Society, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Personal life In 1917, Janet Howell married Dr. Admont Halsey Clark, a professor in Pathology at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, who died in October 1918 at age 30 due to the Spanish influenza epidemic. The couple had one daughter.

Publications

Clark, J. H. Lighting in Relation to Public Health. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins, 1924. Clark, J. H. "Studies on radiated proteins. 1. Coagulation of egg albumen by ultraviolet light and heat." American Journal of Physiology 73: 649-660, 1925. Clark, J. H. "Ultraviolet radiation in relation to health." Nutr. Abstr. Rev. 3: 3-21, 1933. Clark, J. H. "Studies on radiated proteins. 2. The effect of ultraviolet light on lens proteins." American Journal of Physiology 113: 538-547, 1935.