Professor Clark was first appointed as a lecturer at Charles Sturt University in 2003. In 2008, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer and then to Professor in 2022. Prior to 2003, Professor Clark completed a post-doctorate research position at Charles Sturt University (2001-2003), Phd studies at The University of Melbourne (1997-2001) and his BSc degree at The University of Melbourne (1993-1996).

Professor Clark has national and international reputation in wine chemistry and is the current President of the Scientific Committee for the In Vino Analytica Scientia conference series. His research was recognised for impact with the Australian Society of Viticulture and Oenology award for most influential oenology paper published in the Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research for 2015. He has been invited to deliver lectures on wine chemistry-related topics in Spain (Universidad Politecnica de Valencia), France (Le Groupe Ecole Supérieure d’Agriculture, 2013), Hungary (Corninus University of Budapest, 2014), and China (Northwest A&F University, 2017).

Professor Clark has a research focus in the area of wine chemistry.

More specifically his research group studies the oxidative and reductive development of wine. Their aim to progress knowledge in this area to limit the spoilage of wine during its aging in bottle. This has involved detailed investigations into the reactions of phenolic compounds and/or ascorbic acid in wine, and the identification of the products eminating from such reactions. The involvement of metal ions in the wine development mechanisms has also been studied, and novel approaches have been developed to enble the measurement of different forms of metals in wine. Research has also been conducted on the impact of light on wine development.

Although many branches of chemistry are drawn upon for such studies, analytical chemistry underpins the work conducted by Professor Clark and his research group. This has included extensive work with liquid and gas chromatographies, with their various detectors (i.e., QTOF, QQQ and SCD), and electrochemical and colorimetric analyses.

An example of the key outcomes emanating from the recent work by Professor Clark and his research group are:

• Knowledge on how forms of metal ions impact wine during oxidative and reductive aging
• Research techniques for the measurement of different metal forms in wine
• Applied techniques for wineries to allow measurement of total Cu and its different forms in red and white wines
• Insights on how to relate the different forms of metal ions to wine stability during the aging of wine in bottle.

Professor Clark lectures in a range of chemistry and applied wine chemistry-related subjects. He is the subject coordinator of first-year level and third-year level wine chemistry subjects, and has revamped the subjects to integrate multi-platform delivery, incorporating up-to-date modules, videos, self-assessment calculators and interactive models.