Dr. David B. Clarke is presently Research Associate Professor in the Center for Transportation Research. During his CTR tenure, he held positions as Pellissippi Research Office manager (1990-1995), TDOT research program manager (1995-2008), Tennessee Transportation Assistance Program manager (2004-2016), and Executive Director (2008-2020). Dr. Clarke’s 25 years of CTR service was interrupted between 1998-2004 when he was a faculty member at Clemson University. Since his retirement from UTK in 2020, Dr. Clarke has served as a lead instructor in CTR’s railroad continuing education classes and as adjunct faculty in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Dr. Clarke’s research focused on freight transportation and logistics, transport modeling, railroad capacity, and transportation safety. As principal investigator, he oversaw over $33 million in funding during his career. He authored or co-authored over 65 peer-reviewed journal articles related to this research. Dr. Clarke is internationally recognized for his work in rail transportation. His 44-year career covers work as a railway engineer, educator, and researcher. In 1992, Dr. Clarke started CTR’s railroad continuing education program for railroad industry professionals. This highly regarded program continues to the present day and had thousands of attendees. Dr. Clarke’s teaching has taken him throughout the U.S. and to Mexico, Panama, Australia, and China. He has served as Chair of the ASCE Rail Transportation Committee and is an Emeritus Member and former Chair of the TRB Freight Rail Transportation Committee (AR040). Dr. Clarke is a life member of the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association.

Dr. Clarke holds Ph. D, M.S., and B.S.C.E. degrees from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
He is a registered professional engineer in Tennessee and South Carolina.

• Dong C., A. Khattak, D. Clarke, K. Xie, Exploring the factors that contribute to the injury severities of vulnerable roadway users involved crashes, International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion (NICS), 26:3, 2019, pp. 302-314.

• Dong C., Shao, C., Clarke, D.B., Nambisan, S., “An innovative approach for traffic crash estimation and prediction on accommodating unobserved heterogeneities,” Transportation Research Part B, 118, pp. 407-428, 2018.

• Rose J.G., Clarke, D.B., Liu, Q., and Watts, T.J., “Application of Granular Material Pressure Cells to Measure Railroad Track Tie/Ballast Interfacial Pressures,” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2672, pp. 146-155, 2018.

• Zhang M., Khattak, A.J., Liu, J., and Clarke, D.B., “A Comparative Study of Rail-Pedestrian Trespassing Crash Injury Severity between Highway-Rail Grade Crossings and Non-Crossings,” Accident Analysis & Prevention, 117, 2018, pp. 427-438.

• Song, Weimin, Shu, X, Huang B., Sun, Y., Gong H., & Clarke, D.B. (2017). Laboratory evaluations of pressure distribution under steel and timber crossties in railway track. ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering Part A: Systems. DOI:10.1061/JTEPS.0000075.

• Wang X., A. Khattak, J. Liu, & D. Clarke, Non-crossing rail-trespassing crashes in the past decade: a spatial approach to analysis of injury severity, Safety Science, Volume 82, February 2016, Pages 44–55.

• Zeng, Jin, Jin Xiaonan, Dong, Chunjiao, & Clarke, D.B. (2016). A Transfer Routes Choice Model of Railway Passenger Based on the Maximum Utility. International Conference on Transportation & Development, American Society of Civil Engineers, Houston, TX.

• Zeng, Jin, Jin, Xiaonan, Dong, Chunjiao, & Clarke, D. B. (2016). A Transfer Routes Choice Model of Railway Passenger Based on the Maximum Utility. ASCE International Conference on Transportation & Development, Houston, Texas, USA.

• Zeng, Jin, Zhang, Xiaoqing, Dong, Chunjiao, & Clarke D.B., (2017). Bi-level Programming for Ticket Pricing of High Speed Railway Passenger Train Based on Travel Mode Choice Behavior. 97th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Washington D.C.

• Zhang Licheng, Jin M., Ye, Z., Li., H. Clarke, D. B., & Wang Y. (2017). Macro-Level Classification Yard Capacity Modeling. Transportation Research Record (TRR) Journal of the Transportation Research Board (in press).

• Zhang, Licheng, Min, Mingzhou, & Clarke, D.B. (2016) Micro-Level Classification Yard Capacity Modeling. ASME 2016 Joint Rail Conference, Columbia, SC.

• Clarke, D.B., Rose, J.G., Watts, T.J., and Russell, E., “In-Track Measurements of Crosstie-Ballast Interfacial Pressure Magnitudes and Distributions with Varying Train Operational Conditions”, International Conference on Transportation & Development 2019, American Society of Civil Engineers, Alexandria, VA, June 2019.

• Watts, T.J., Rose, J.G., Russell, E.J., and Clarke, D.B., “Static and Dynamic Crosstie-Ballast Interfacial Pressure Measurements using FRA Research Test Train”, Railway Engineering 2019, Edinburgh, Scotland, July 2019.

• Rose, J.G., Watts, T.J., Russell, E.J., and Clarke, D.B., “Crosstie-Ballast Interfacial Pressure Tests: Development of a Procedure and In-Track Revenue Train Measurements”, Railway Engineering 2019, Edinburgh, Scotland, July 2019.

• Watts, T.J., Rose, J.G., Clarke, D.B., and Russell, E., “In-Track Crosstie/Ballast Interfacial Pressure Measurements and Comparisons with Wild Measurements,” 98th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., January 13-17, 2019.

• Clarke, D.B., “Competitive Challenges for the Major Freight Rail Systems in the United States”, International Conference on Transportation & Development 2019, American Society of Civil Engineers, Alexandria, VA, June 12, 2019.

• Clarke, D.B., “In-Track Measurements of Crosstie-Ballast Interfacial Pressure Magnitudes and Distributions with Varying Train Operational Conditions”, poster session, International Conference on Transportation & Development 2019, American Society of Civil Engineers, Alexandria, VA, June 10, 2019.

• Clarke, D.B., “Railway Industry: Overview,” Invited Lecture, CE 355, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, November 13, 2018.