Written by Alana Depaz

Dr. Peter Clancy has been a part of the IMSA community for ten years. Not only did he positively influence the students, but he was also a kind, reliable, genuine, and pun-loving person with all of his colleagues. Dr. Don Dosch shared that at the very start of Dr. Clancy’s IMSA career, he “interviewed here for a physics position. But, you know, during an interview you’re being super careful, you’re looking for behaviors. Immediately I could tell that he was going to be approachable, supportive, and challenging of students. And, I must say that my first impressions really never changed with time. You know, sometimes during an interview people want to give you their best impression. He was sincere, he was the person that we saw in the interview.”

Dr. Clancy truly had a personality that everyone could look up to. Dr. Mark Carlson expressed: “I consider myself privileged to share an office with him. We were just on the same wavelength. There was never any misunderstanding between us, so it made working together really easy. Spending nine years together in an office, I can never remember one harsh word ever uttered between us, or him towards anyone or anything. And, he was a good example on many fronts. He never got angry, he never was short with me or students. I think he was a remarkable model, a person you would like to emulate in terms of his patience, his willingness to help, his humility. I mean, there were so many good qualities that I felt it was very good for the students to see this person, because we’re surrounded by so many bad examples that don’t necessarily seem to have ramifications, but he modeled good behavior in so many ways.”

Dr. Peter Dong added that “Dr. Clancy was always out of the spotlight. He wasn’t trying to make waves, wasn’t trying to make a name for himself. And, especially towards the end, he was getting very sick. He still came very faithfully, came to teach his classes, to do his work just as always, and he only missed class when he had to be physically gone at a doctor’s appointment or the hospital. One time, he had to check into the hospital for a few days, and then as soon as he came out he came right back to work. You know, he really liked it here, he really enjoyed his job, but it was also a duty, and he took it very seriously. You know, this job is not high-paying. He has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering; he could do a lot of other things. He wasn’t getting even recognition, particularly, because while a lot of people knew him as a teacher, he wasn’t on the brochure. He was just here doing his job, and doing it well. That’s something I think we underrate sometimes. We talk about innovation, disruption, big changes, and that’s all fine, but to recognize the value in coming and doing a job you enjoy, and to do it well, and to not need anything else besides that; I feel like that’s a lesson to learn.”

Another aspect of his amazing personality was his sly sense of humor. When asked about a fondest memory of Dr. Clancy, Dr. Carlson stated that “We had put up some pictures of remarkable scientists, and there was a picture of this person who was responsible for a theory on symmetry relating symmetry to physical forces, and so this person was all about high symmetry and he said ‘You ever noticed how that person wears a monocle?’”

Dr. Dong shared one of his favorite memories of Dr. Clancy as well, and of course, it involved one of his jokes: “This is hard to explain, because it’s really geeky, but Dr. Clancy really liked puns and he would go out of his way to work them in. One time, when I first started teaching Computational Science, I was trying out a lot of things for the first time that I’d never done, and one of the things I tried was the thermodynamic model of water. So I had simulated molecules going around, and I was trying to make it so you heat it up, and when you heat it up sufficiently, it would start to boil, so the water molecules would evaporate off the top. I was trying to figure that out, but it wasn’t working. Dr. Clancy had studied chemical engineering, so I was asking him for suggestions. A day or two later, he came and he found me, and he said, ‘I figured out the problem.’ He said ‘I assume your program runs a loop and at every time increment it checks to see if the water is boiling.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I guess I’m doing that.’ He said, ‘You must keep the time increment very short.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ And he said, ‘Well, there’s your problem, then. A watched pot never boils.’”

From beginning to end, he was always someone to look up to, someone to learn from, both in and out of the classroom. Though he may not have been trying to make a name for himself, he definitely left a legacy with us here at IMSA. We are all grateful that Dr. Clancy chose to share a part of his life with us and be a part of our own little community. He will be dearly missed.