Adrienne Elizabeth Clarke (née Petty, born 6 January 1938) is Professor Emeritus of Botany at the University of Melbourne, where she ran the Plant Cell Biology Research Centre from 1982–1999.

Born in Melbourne, Clarke reports she experienced some sexism as a bright student in the 1950s.

She attended Ruyton Girls' School and entered the University of Melbourne in 1955 where she was a resident of Janet Clarke Hall (then still part of Trinity College) reading Science.

She graduated with an Honours degree in Biological Sciences in 1959, and gained her PhD in 1963.

She worked at the University of Melbourne as Research Fellow (1969–1977), then lecturer, senior lecturer and reader before being appointed Professor of Botany in 1985 and Laureate Professor in 1999.

She retired from the University in 2005.

In 2010 she joined the La Trobe University Council, and succeeded Sylvia Walton as Chancellor of La Trobe University on 26 February 2011.She has also been involved in the commercial sector; she was a director of a number of public companies and sat on a number of boards, including Western Mining, Alcoa, Fisher and Paykel, Woolworths and the AMP Society.

In 1998, in association with three University of Melbourne colleagues, she founded the agribusiness Hexima.