The University of Queensland

Dorothy Hill was a geologist and a graduate of the University of Queensland. She obtained a M.Sc degree in 1930 and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1932. Dorothy was a fine sports woman, she represented the University and Queensland in hockey, and had a love of athletics especially hurdling. Her spirit of adventure was obvious when in 1928-1929 she explored the Upper Brisbane Valley on horseback completing the fieldwork for her Master of Science thesis. While at Cambridge Dorothy also obtained her A Class Pilot’s License.

Through her long academic career she achieved many firsts:

• first woman to graduate with a gold medal
• first woman to be admitted as a Doctor of Science at the University of Queensland
• first woman professor at an Australian university
• first woman elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
• first woman president, and the first woman Fellow of the Royal Society
• first female president of a Professorial (Academic) Board in Australia

Listen to a 1981 interview with Dorothy Hill

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Dorothy Hill was a world authority on Palaeozoic corals and her publications remain the definitive work in the field to this day. In 1997 the Physical Sciences and Engineering Library was named in her honour, The Dorothy Hill Physical Sciences and Engineering Library.

View a list of her publications held at the University of Queensland Library