The University Record, April 2, 1996
Clarke will receive Sokol Award
Roy Clarke, professor of physics and director of the Applied Physics Program, will receive the 1995&endash;96 Margaret and Herman Sokol Faculty Award for his contributions to graduate education and research.
The award will be presented at a public lecture to be given by Clarke at 4 p.m. April 10 at the Rackham Amphitheater.
Clarke, who has taught at the U-M since 1979, is renowned for his research in condensed matter physics, especially in the use of X-ray scattering techniques in the study of the structure of matter.
As founding director of the University’s Applied Physics Program, which currently has about 40 doctoral students, Clarke has assembled one of the world’s leading research groups for structural studies on low-dimensional systems. Under his direction, courses in condensed matter physics have expanded significantly, with appoximately one-third of the graduate students in physics now conducting research in that area.
“Professor Clarke has had a singular impact on graduate education and on research in physics at the University of Michigan,” says Ctirad Uher, professor and chair of the Department of Physics. “Through his research, through his conscientious and creative direction of graduate students, and through his development and direction of the applied physics program, graduate education and research at Michigan have been much enhanced.”
Administered by the Rackham School of Graduate Studies, the $25,000 Sokol Award is given annually to a tenured faculty member in astronomy, biology, chemistry, geological sciences, mathematics or physics.
Margaret Sokol and her late husband Herman, who graduated from the U-M in 1940 with a master’s degree in chemistry, first established an annual fellowship for graduate students in chemistry in 1983. After Herman Sokol’s death in 1985, Margaret Sokol established additional awards to assist graduate and undergraduate students, post-doctoral fellows and faculty in the sciences for research and teaching.
