Dorothy Hill

She received a further scholarship, Senior Student of the Exhibition of 1851 for two years and the Daniel Pidgeon Fund award from the Geological Society of London which enabled her to remain in England until 1936.

A number of Australian students were at Newnham College with Hill in this era, including Elizabeth "Betty" Ripper, who was also studying palaeontology, and Germaine Joplin.

She worked with Drs William Dickson Lang and Stanley Smith on Palaeozoic coral taxonomy, at the Natural History Museum in London.

Dorothy Hill, (10 September 1907 – 23 April 1997) was an Australian geologist and palaeontologist, the first female professor at an Australian university, and the first female president of the Australian Academy of Science.

Dorothy Hill was born in Taringa, the third of 7 children, and grew up in Coorparoo in Brisbane.

She attended Coorparoo State School, and then won a scholarship to attend Brisbane Girls Grammar School.

She received the Lady Lilley Gold Medal, and the Phyllis Hobbs Memorial Prize in English and History, in 1924.

Hill was an enthusiastic sportswoman, who pursued athletics and netball at high school, and was an accomplished horsewoman at home.

At the University of Queensland, she participated in hurdles, running, hockey and rowing.

She played on the University of Queensland, Queensland state and Australian universities hockey teams.

While at Cambridge University, she took a pilot's licence.

Following high school, she considered studying medicine and pursuing studies in medical research; however, at the time, the University of Queensland did not offer a medical degree, and the Hill family could not afford to send Dorothy to Sydney.

Fortunately, she won one of twenty entrance scholarships to the University of Queensland in 1924 (after receiving the highest pass in the Senior Public Matriculation Exam), where she decided to study science, in particular chemistry.

She chose to study geology as an elective, and under the guidance of Professor Henry Caselli Richards she graduated in 1928 with a First Class Honours degree in Geology and the university's Gold Medal for Outstanding Merit.

Hill continued to work as a UQ Fellow through 1929–30 on scholarship while she was studying her Master of Science, conducting research in the Brisbane Valley on the stratigraphy of shales in Esk and sediments in the Ipswich basin.

She began to collect fossils after she was introduced to them in the local limestone of a farm, where she was holidaying in Mundubbera.

She was put forward for a UQ Foundation Travelling Scholarship by Professor Richards to study at the University of Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum, in residence at Newnham College, just as the Great Depression was taking effect.

At Cambridge, Hill was a Fellow of Newnham College and the Sedgwick Museum and was supported from 1931 to 1933 on an Old Students Research Fellowship while she worked on her PhD under supervisor, Gertrude Elles.

From 1937 to 1942, Hill was the recipient of a Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) grant and worked as a research fellow at the University of Queensland.

In 1939, Hill was involved with the Geological Survey of Queensland, consulted for the Shell Corporation and was secretary of the Royal Society of Queensland.

Before the outbreak of World War II, she was leading geological field trips around Moreton Bay, and was studying the first core drills of the Great Barrier Reef with the Great Barrier Reef Committee.

She won a Lyell Fund award in 1940, the first Queenslander and only the ninth Australian to do so, for her work on corals.

During World War II, Hill enlisted in the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service, serving in the Naval Office in Brisbane, a division of HMAS Moreton.

She worked 80–90 hours a week in between her coral research and in the cipher and coding of shipping orders in General Douglas MacArthur's division.

She rose to the office of 2nd operations officer in the division, and also served on the demobilisation planning committee for women's services following the war.

After Hill's return to Australia, she continued to study at the University of Queensland and took a Doctor of Science in 1942.

Hill remained in England for seven years, publishing several important papers systematising the terminology for describing Rugose corals, and describing their structure and morphology.

When Hill returned to Australia she took on the huge task of dating the limestone coral faunas of Australia, using them to outline wide-ranging stratigraphy, and producing papers on the coral faunas of all states except South Australia, some of these with Dr Walter Heywood Bryan.

Her work on corals became the worldwide standard.

From 1946 to 1955, Hill served as the third secretary of the Great Barrier Reef Committee.

She was instrumental in getting facilities at the Heron Island Research Station constructed.

Her efforts included raising money, shipping in materials, and even building items for the facilities such as water tanks.

Through campaigning, she was able to receive grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Australian Research Grants Committee.

The money was used to improve the laboratory facilities and provide accommodation for visitors.

She appointed Dr. W.G.H. Maxwell to a lecturing position in the department of geology, and he made several contributions to further benefit the Reef.

Hill was appointed a full lecturer at UQ in 1946.

Australian universities did not begin awarding PhD's until 1948 (with the first at UQ being awarded in 1950 ).

Hill continued to explore the theory that Australia had once been covered from north to south by an inland sea, as evidenced by the fossil corals she found in Mundubbera.

In 1952, she was appointed senior lecturer before becoming chief lecturer in 1956, reader in geology in 1958, and research professor in 1959.

She became a full professor in 1960.