Elizabeth Colerick "Jody" Clipp, a nationally recognized researcher on care for the terminally ill, died Aug. 5 of pancreatic cancer at her Chapel Hill, N.C., home She was 57.
Born Elizabeth Colerick in Charlotte, N.C., she was raised in Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., and in Timonium, where she graduated from Dulaney High School.
She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in nursing at the University of Maryland. She worked as an emergency room nurse for eight years at the University of Maryland Medical Center before leaving in 1980 for Cornell University, where she earned a doctorate in psychology.
Dr. Clipp joined the faculty of the center on aging at Duke University and was awarded a fellowship in the Gerontological Society of America. She rose to become a full professor of medicine and associate director for research at the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center at the Durham Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Dr. Clipp founded the Duke University School of Nursing's scientific Center for Excellence, led the creation of the nursing doctorate program and later became the associate dean for research.
She was awarded the Bessie Baker Chair in nursing and this year became a fellow in the American Society of Nursing.
Duke University honored her in May by renaming the research facility the Elizabeth C. Clipp Nursing Research Building.
"She ran an institute on care at the end of life that was jointly run with the divinity school at Duke," said her husband of 21 years, Steven Clipp, an architect in Chapel Hill, N.C. "Her studies were on informal caregivers, such as family members, and what could be done to help the caregivers and delay institutionalization."
A memorial Mass was offered Friday in Chapel Hill.
In addition to her husband, survivors include a son, Stephen Clipp, and two daughters, Elizabeth Clipp and Celeste Clipp, all of Chapel Hill; her mother, Elizabeth Colerick, of Baltimore, and a brother, Craig Colerick, of Annapolis.