Kieran Clarke is Professor of Physiological Biochemistry and British Heart Foundation Principal Scientist in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. She joined the University of Oxford in 1991. Prior to her current appointment, she was a Group Leader for the National Research Council of Canada (in Biomedical Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy) and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physiology at Ottawa University in Canada.

Professor Clarke has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Queensland in Australia. She conducted her postdoctoral research at Harvard University Medical School Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory from 1985 to 1989.

Professor Clarke has over 20 years experience in cardiac function and energy metabolism using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and spectroscopy. She currently heads the Cardiac Metabolism Research Group, whose research is directed towards understanding the metabolic control of gene expression in heart failure and in the diabetic heart, and includes the use of stem cells to treat the infarcted heart. She also works on the effects of diet on energy metabolism in heart, brain and skeletal muscle, and thereby on physical performance and cognitive function. She is founder and non-executive director of a University of Oxford spin-out company, TS.