1. Jenny Clack specialised in the early evolution of tetrapods, specifically studying the "fish to tetrapod" transition: the origin, evolutionary development and radiation of early tetrapods and their relatives among the lobe-finned fishes.
23 Facts About Jenny Clack
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Jenny Clack is best known for her book Gaining Ground: the Origin and Early Evolution of Tetrapods, published in 2002 and written with the layperson in mind.
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Jenny Clack was curator at the Museum of Zoology and Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Cambridge, where she devoted her career to studying the early development of tetrapods, the "four-legged" animals said to have evolved from Devonian lobe-finned fishes and colonised the freshwater swamps of the Carboniferous period.
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Jenny Clack was born on 3 November 1947, the only child of Ernest and Alice Agnew.
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Jenny Clack was educated at Bolton School, a private school in Bolton, Lancashire.
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Jenny Clack held a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester and an MA from the University of Cambridge.
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In 1981, Jenny Clack joined the University Museum of Zoology, University of Cambridge, as an Assistant Curator.
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Jenny Clack was promoted to Senior Assistant Curator in 1995.
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Jenny Clack retired in 2015 and became Emeritus Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the museum.
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In 1997, Jenny Clack was elected a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge; since 1 October 2015, she has been an Emeritus Fellow.
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On 1 October 2006, Jenny Clack was awarded a personal chair by Cambridge, taking the title Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology.
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Jenny Clack is best known for her extensive body of work on early tetrapods, much of which redefined how paleontologists conceived of the evolution of limbs and other features associated with tetrapods' transition from other lobe-finned fishes.
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Jenny Clack began her career working primarily on the ear of early tetrapods and later expanded to more broadly addressing the osteology and evolution of tetrapods.
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Together with Michael Coates, Jenny Clack defined what is known as "Romer's Gap", a major gap in the fossil record of early tetrapods and one that she subsequently began to fill in collaboration with other paleontologists.
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Jenny Clack undertook extensive fieldwork expeditions in order to search for further remains of early tetrapods.
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Jenny Clack is probably best known for discovering that the earliest tetrapods had more than five toes per foot: the Upper Devonian tetrapods from East Greenland, Ichthyostega had seven while Acanthostega had eight.
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Jenny Clack supervised many graduate students who went on to pursue successful careers in paleontology and evolutionary biology, including Per Ahlberg, Paul Upchurch, Michael Lee, and Matthew Friedman.
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Jenny Clack was honored by her peers with a festschrift published in 2019.
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Jenny Clack died on 26 March 2020 at the age of 72, after a five-year battle with endometrial cancer.
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In 2008, Jenny Clack was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the US National Academy of Sciences, the first woman to achieve the honor.
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In 2009, Jenny Clack was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the first female vertebrate paleontologist to achieve the honor.
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Jenny Clack has been elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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On 15 June 2013, Jenny Clack was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of Chicago.