Clark, Helen E., 1912-2001.

Helen E. Clark was born in 1912 in Saskatchewan and received her Bachelor of Household Science degree (1939) from the University of Saskatchewan. She taught home economics in British Columbia (1939-1942) and then received a research assistantship at Iowa State University. Her M.S. thesis research (1945) was based on the protein quality of the egg for the growth of young rats. Her Ph. D research (1950) was directed to protein and amino acid requirements of adult rats. Dr. Clark was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Kansas State University (1950-1954) and then Purdue University (1954-1977). There she developed a project related to protein and amino acid requirements of humans, whether these were provided by foods alone, amino acid mixtures, or combinations of foods and amino acids.

She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Borden Award (1968), the Centennial Award of the College of Home Economics (ISU, 1971), the first woman to be recognized as a Distinguished Professor (Purdue, 1974), and honorary Doctor of Science (Purdue, 1994). In 1995, Dr. Clark was awarded a Distinguished Achievement Citation from the Iowa State University Alumni Association. She was named Professor Emerita of the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue University. Helen Clark died on 3 January 2001.