36 Facts About Dorothy Hill

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

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

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

Dorothy Hill 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.

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

Dorothy Hill 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, Dorothy 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.

Dorothy 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.

Dorothy Hill 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.

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

Dorothy 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 Dorothy 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dorothy Hill wrote a second volume for the treatise on Archaeocyatha in 1972.

In 1947, Dorothy Hill was president of the Royal Society of Queensland.

In 1956 Dorothy Hill became the first female fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.

In 1964, Dorothy Hill was awarded the Lyell Medal for scientific research and became the first Australian woman to be a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Dorothy Hill served on the Australian Academy of Science committees, becoming vice-president in 1969 and the first female president in 1970, following the death of David Forbes Martyn.

Dorothy Hill made statements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, to promote female enrolments in science, discouraged by the slow growth in the area, and push toward a campaign aimed at parents.

In 1971, Dorothy Hill became president of the Professorial Board of the University of Queensland, the first woman to be so recognised.

Dorothy Hill retired from the university in late 1972 to let younger academics have their turn in administration and to return to research, and the Dorothy Hill chair was established in her honour in Palaeontology and Stratigraphy.

Dorothy Hill continued to come into the university to pursue research, long after her official retirement, until about 1987.

Dorothy Hill was recognised with an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the university in 1974, in acknowledgement of her time on the Professorial Board.

Dorothy Hill published over 100 research publications in Australian and international journals and books.

In 1978, Dorothy Hill completed the comprehensive Bibliography and Index of Australian Paleozoic Coral.

Dorothy Hill had strong views on the value of a library to a university.

Dorothy Hill made significant contributions to Australian earth science and was a pivotal role model in opening a whole new world of education to women.

Dorothy Hill mentored many students who went on to great success in the field of earth sciences, including Ken Campbell and Graham Maxwell.

The electoral district of Dorothy Hill created in the 2017 Queensland state electoral redistribution was named after her, in recognition of her work for the Great Barrier Reef.

Dorothy Hill was the subject of a Google Doodle on 10 September 2018, the 111th anniversary of her birth.