Dorothy Hill

Dorothy Hill was born in 1907 in Taringa, Brisbane. She was the third of seven children and grew up in Coorparoo. She attended Coorparoo State School and Brisbane Girls Grammar School, where she excelled academically and athletically. She won a scholarship to the University of Queensland in 1924, where she studied science and chose geology as an elective. She graduated in 1928 with a First Class Honours degree in Geology and the university's Gold Medal for Outstanding Merit. She continued to work as a UQ Fellow while studying her Master of Science, conducting research on the stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Brisbane Valley. She also developed an interest in fossils, especially corals, which became her lifelong passion. In 1930, she received a UQ Foundation Travelling Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum, where she worked on her PhD under the supervision of Gertrude Elles. She completed her thesis on the rugose corals of Australia in 1933 and became a Fellow of Newnham College and the Sedgwick Museum. She returned to Australia in 1936 and resumed her position as a lecturer at UQ. During World War II, she joined the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) as a cipher officer and worked in Melbourne and Brisbane. After the war, she continued her research on corals and fossils, as well as teaching undergraduate courses and supervising postgraduate students. She became a world authority on corals and coral reefs, especially those from the Paleozoic Era (roughly 541 to 252 million years ago). She also contributed to the study of the Great Barrier Reef and its Quaternary history (the last 2.6 million years). She published over 150 papers and monographs on various aspects of geology and palaeontology. She also amassed a large collection of coral specimens, which are now housed at UQ and other institutions. Dorothy Hill was a pioneer for women in science and academia in Australia. She was the first woman to be appointed as a professor at an Australian university in 1959, when she became Research Professor of Geology at UQ. She was also the first woman to be elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA) in 1956 and the first woman to serve as its president in 1970. She received many honours and awards for her scientific achievements, including the Clarke Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1966, the Lyell Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1972, and the W.R. Browne Medal from the Geological Society of Australia in 1974. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1965 and Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1976. She retired from UQ in 1972 but remained active in research and administration until her death in 1997 from pneumonia. She was buried at Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane.¹²