Clark was born on September 8, 1935 in El Paso, Texas.. She gained her B. S. degree from Kansas State University in 1958, followed by her M.S. degree in 1963 with a thesis about Frequency spectrum of elastic waves in body centered cubic lattices with Basil Curnutte and Robert Herman supervising her research. She then studied with A. M. Saperstein for her doctorate at Wayne State University.
