Margaret A. Clarke

1942- 1998

The worldwide sugar industry was shocked and saddened by Margaret Clarke's untimely death on June 18, 1998.

Margaret Clarke was born May 8,1942, in Belfast Ireland. When she was a young child, her parents emigrated to Canada. She received her B.Sc. at the University of Western Ontario in 1963 and her Ph.D in 1970 in physical inorganic chemistry at Tulane University in New Orleans. In 1980, she received an M.B.A. from Loyola University, New Orleans.

She left the harsh winters of Canada for the warmth of Louisiana and made New Orleans her home for the rest of her life, although the entire sugar world was her stage.

She began her employment with the Cane Sugar Refining Research Project m 1969 as a research chemist and later was named the Managing Director in 1981, when it became the Sugar Processing Research Institute.

During her tenure at S.P.R.I., she continued the work begun by Dr. Frank G. Carpenter, the first Director of the Cane Sugar Refining Research Project expanding the scope of endeavor from cane sugar refining to all aspects of sugar production, including beet production. Under her direction, the number of industrial sponsors of S.P.R.I. expanded to over 40 members.

Margaret Clarke was a tireless worker for the cause of sugar, traveling and lecturing around the world. She published over 200 papers, contributed many book and encyclopedia articles and organized or contributed to innumerable meetings. She served on the editorial boards of Sugar Industry Abstracts, Sugar Technology Reviews and Seminars in Food Analysis. She organized the Conferences on Sugar Processing Research, of which the present volume is part. She instituted the S.P.R.I. Workshops, a diverse series devoted to timely aspects of sugar processing or analysis. She was also responsible for the S.P.R.I. Science Award and the S.P.R.I. Industrial Technology Award.

In 1985, she began the New Orleans Carbohydrate Symposium, a series of Gordon conference style, small informal meetings attended, by invitation only, by the highest caliber of carbohydrate chemists in the world. The thirteenth conference was held in April 1998.

In her last months, while ill, she organized three major meetings - the 13th New Orleans Carbohydrate Symposium, the Sugar Processing Research Conference, and the S.P.R.I. Workshop on Sugar Around the World. She also attended the Sugar Industry Technologists meeting and the 22nd Session of ICUMSA.

She was tireless and devoted, and her loss is keenly felt by many around the world.