[3] After graduating, Clifton worked at Kodak's research laboratories for several months.

[5] In 1936 and 1937, he took a sabbatical leave from Stanford to do research at Cambridge University with Marjory Stephenson and in Delft, Netherlands with Albert Kluyver.

[6][3] World War II labor shortages caused him to agree to teach microbiology courses at San Jose State University.

From 1969 to his death in 1976, he was a professor emeritus in the Department of Medical Microbiology at Stanford.

[8] Charles Clifton married Esther Ora née Carlson of Bruce, South Dakota, on September 7, 1932.