Clough has garnered many other awards and honors, including the title of President Emeritus, two Norman Medals, eight honorary degrees, and membership in the National Science Board.

After electricity spread to south Georgia, the family moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Clough attended City High School.

[4][8] In 1969, Clough received a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, with the thesis "Finite element analyses of soil-structures interaction in U-frame locks".

Clough's research focused on geotechnical engineering, including earthquake studies, numerical analysis, soil structure interaction, in-situ testing, and underground openings.

[4] Clough cofounded the United States Universities Council of Geotechnical Engineering Research (USUCGER), and served as the organization's first president during 1993.

[14] On September 1, 1994, Clough became the first Georgia Tech alumnus to serve as the President of the Institute, succeeding John Patrick Crecine, and was in office during the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Tech also received the Hesburgh Award for support of undergraduate teaching and learning,[13] and the Institute's U.S. News & World Report rankings steadily improved.

[29][30] The students of Georgia Tech affectionately dubbed him "Funk Masta G. Wayne" during his presidency due to the expansion and growth he encouraged in urban Atlanta, and he was generally known to have a warm and friendly disposition and a distinctive beard.

[34][35] The students won this case and Georgia Tech was forced to drop their speech code which was deemed unconstitutional and pay the defendants court costs.

[40] Clough was elected the 12th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; he was notified via a phone call with regents chairman Roger W. Sant on the afternoon of March 14, 2008.

[51][52] On November 30, 2010, Secretary Clough made the decision to remove the David Wojnarowicz video A Fire in My Belly from the National Portrait Gallery's "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" exhibition.

[57][58] In announcing his retirement, he said, "When I became Secretary in 2008, I believed strongly that the Smithsonian had enormous untapped potential, especially in digital technology, to reach millions of people and serve as a resource for those who cannot visit Washington.

I am confident that with our initiatives underway in bioconservation, education, digitization and fundraising, this is the right time to announce my plans for next fall so that an orderly transition can begin.

He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1990 for developing and verifying advanced design and analysis procedures for soil-structure interaction problems.