Professor Adrienne Clarke is a world-renowned botanist, the former chairman of the CSIRO and former lieutenant-general of Victoria. Clarke is described as a scientist of firsts. Her team was the first to clone the gene which regulates self-compatibility in plants and the first to clone the cDNA of protein found in the connective tissues of plants. Clarke was also the first female appointed Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne.

Clark is the Chancellor of La Trobe University and remains on at the University of Melbourne in an honorary position. She continues to work on many government and private committees and is heavily involved with many national and international scientific bodies. Until 2010, Clarke was a founding Director of Hexima Limited, a company that focuses on agricultural biotechnology.

Clarke has received a series of awards and accolades throughout her career for her work as a scientist and lecturer, as well as her time spent as the chairman of the CSIRO and later as lieutenant-general of Victoria. These awards include her appointment as a Companion of the Order of Australia, and as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Clarke is now a member of Dūcere’s Global Leaders Faculty, where she draws on her long and distinguished career in botany, chemistry, business and education.