Colin Whitcomb ClarkFRS (18 June 1931 – 12 April 2024) was a Canadian mathematician and behaviorial ecologist who contributed to the economics of natural resources. Clark specialized inbehavioral ecology and the economics of natural resources, specifically, in the management of commercial fisheries.[1] Clark was named a Fellow of the International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade (IIFET) in 2016 for his contributions tobioeconomics.[2] Clark's impact upon fisheries economics through his scholarly work is encapsulated inMathematical Bioeconomics: The Mathematics of Conservation, which is considered to be a classic contribution inenvironmental economic theory.[3]
Clark was born inVancouver, Canada on 18 June 1931. He completed his PhD. in 1958 at theUniversity of Washington. He was appointed to theUniversity of British Columbia's mathematics department in 1960, working onpartial differential equations,spectral theory, andfunctional analysis, before pivoting tomathematical biology. He married Janet Clark, with whom he had 3 children. As a result of his work in mathematical biology, he became a member of the Vancouver Natural History Society, and a prolificbirdwatcher. He died on 12 April 2024, at the age of 92.[4]
