Profile
Charles W. Clark
Charles W. Clark (b. 1952 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) joined the staff of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS; now NIST) in October 1981 and retired from NIST on December 31, 2022. He was appointed NIST Fellow in 2010 and is currently a NIST Fellow Emeritus. He was named Fellow Emeritus of the Joint Quantum Institute in 2007. He is also the Physical Sciences Editor for the DLMF project. After graduating from the Seattle Public Schools, he received his B.A. in mathematics and physics from Western Washington University and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago. He was a postdoctoral research associate at Daresbury Laboratory in the U.K. before joining NBS.
His current research interests include the dynamics of ultracold atoms and their applications to quantum information and neutron interferometry, as well as applications and metrology of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light.
He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 1992 and is also a Fellow of the Optical Society of America (now Optica), the Institute of Physics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the Washington Academy of Sciences. He is a Life Member and Honorary Fellow of the Bangladesh Physical Society. He was Dr. Lee Fellow at Christ Church College of the University of Oxford and has been a Visiting Fellow at Merton College (Oxford), Australian National University, University of Malaya, and National University of Singapore.
Clark was elected to the NIST Gallery of Distinguished Alumni, National Institute of Standards and Technology, in 2023. Other honors include the R&D 100 Award, Distinguished Presidential Rank Award of the U.S. Civil Service, Archie Mahan Prize of Optica, the Physical Sciences Award of the Washington Academy of Sciences, the Gold and Silver Medals of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the NIST Bronze Medal, Edward U. Condon, Safety, and Equal Opportunity Awards. He has served as elected Chair of the Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics of the APS, elected Chair of the AAAS Section on Physics and Section on Industrial Science and Technology, and as Program Manager for Atomic, Molecular, and Quantum Physics at the Office of Naval Research, United States Navy.