In 1989 she obtained a MA from the University of Western Australia with a thesis titled An Analysis of Archaeobotanical Data from Two Sites in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory.
[1] She obtained a PhD in 1996 from the Australian National University, supervised by Rhys Jones, Mike Smith and Matthew Spriggs.
[8][9] For the latter project, she is analysing material culture related to aviation held in a number of collections, including by Qantas and the SFO Museum[10] at San Francisco Airport.
Her work on Groote Eylandt focussed scholarly attention on paintings of Macassan praus in Aboriginal Australian rock art.
[18] In recent years, Clarke has returned to Groot Eylandt where she has been working with the local community to develop educational programs, repatriation protocols and future archaeological research projects.