Jennifer A. Clack

Environmental & Science Education
STEM
Palaeontology
History of Science 
Nature of Science
Earth Science
Earth Systems
Edward Hessler

Nature Briefing announced the death of Jennifer Clack April 23, the scientist noted for her work on the origin of tetrapods. Dr. Clack died of cancer, continuing to work until the last few days of her life.

"Palaeontologist Jennifer Clack, who made groundbreaking discoveries on the emergence of vertebrates out of water and onto land, died on 26 March at age 72. Clack transformed our knowledge of the four-legged, salamander-like animals that evolved from fish and slowly adapted to surviving outside water, starting 419 million years ago. Some of her most celebrated finds came from a 1987 Greenland trip, inspired by her chance discovery of a specimen in a museum drawer in Cambridge, UK. These finds included animals that had seven or eight toes on each foot. “A happy convergence of brilliance, tenacity, opportunity, generosity and modesty enabled Clack (née Agnew) to rejuvenate an entire research field,” writes Per Ahlberg, one of Clack’s students who was part of her Greenland expedition."

You can read the full tribute in the scientific journal Nature here from which the above is quoted. Clack's work was groundbreaking. In Per Ahlberg's essay about her life he, writes" "A happy convergence of brilliance, tenacity, opportunity, generosity and modesty enabled Clack (née Agnew) to rejuvenate an entire research field." She took on hard problems one of which was "'Romer's Gap,'  a 30 million break in the fossil record...she suspected... might be a sampling artefact." 

It was.