George L. Clark
The School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois has a long-standing
tradition in the development of state-of-the-art research facilities accessible
to principal investigators in both academia and industry throughout this
country and beyond our shores. One of the pioneers in this endeavor was
Professor George Lindenberg Clark, who established the first analytical
X-ray laboratory in this country at M.I.T. two (2) years before joining
the faculty at Illinois in 1927. Throughout his distinguished career,
Dr. Clark applied X-ray analyses to a wide variety of materials, including
metals and minerals, natural and synthetic fibers, natural and synthetic
rubber, clays, carbon black, storage battery plates, corks and waxes.
He was far ahead of this time in recognizing the strong inter-relationship
between instrumentation and analysis and was among the first, if not the
very first, to introduce each newly-developed instrumental method into
the University research community. Professor Clark's industrial collaborators
were as numerous as his doctoral students. Over a span of more than three
decades Dr. Clark, or "G. L." as he was known to his students, directed
the post-graduate research of more than eighty-five candidates (85). In
1952, following twenty-five (25) years of applied X-ray research, the
first consolidated X-ray facility was dedicated at the University of Illinois
and G. L. Clark's many students, colleagues and friends honored him with
the plaque now proudly displayed in the newly renovated facility.
