John R. Clem earned his B.S. (1960), M.S. (1962), and Ph.D. (1965) in physics from the University of Illinois. Prior to coming to Iowa State University, Clem was a Research Associate (1965-1966) at the University of Maryland and a Visiting Research Fellow (1966-1967) at the Technical University in Munich. He joined the faculty of Iowa State University as an Assistant Professor (1967-1970) for the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Clem was promoted to Associate Professor (1970-1975) and Professor (1975-2001). He also held a joint position as a Senior Physicist (1967-2001) at the Ames Laboratory. Clem was the Chair (1982 -1985) of the Physics Department with a joint appointment. He was named Distinguished Professor in 1989. Other appointments during his career include; Visiting Staff Member at Los Alamos National Laboratory (1971-1983), Consultant at Argonne National Laboratory (1971-1976), and a Fulbright Research Fellow Institute f r Festkr̲perforschung in Germany (1974-1975). Also he served as a consultant (1982-1985) and a Visiting Scientist (1985-1986) to IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He was a consultant to both Allied - Signal Aerospace Company (1990-1992) and Underground Systems Inc. (1992-1999).