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