Professor Clark has a Ph.D. in geography from The Ohio State University and a master’s degree from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin.

Professor Clark’s research centers on community and state governance of food systems and policies developed to achieve community and state food system goals. She is interested in the dynamics between civic and political, urban and rural, producer and consumer, alternative and conventional, and global and local aspects of food systems. Current funded research focuses on opportunities for connecting food security and agricultural economic development through local policy initiatives, healthy food access, and policy to support the growth of small and mid-size farms engaged in the food system.

Currently, Professor Clark provides statewide leadership for the Ohio Network of Food Policy Councils and national leadership as a member of the eXtension Food Systems Community of Practice team, a partnership of over two dozen universities. Locally, she chairs the United Way of Central Ohio, Health, Nutrition and Fitness Results Committee.

Before joining the faculty, Clark directed the Center for Farmland Policy Innovation at Ohio State from its opening in 2006 until her departure in 2012. Before coming to Ohio State, she directed the Ohio office of American Farmland Trust, a national non-profit.