Catherine Helen Webb was born on 8 May 1918 in Auckland, New Zealand, in her great aunt's house, in which her mother had grown up.

[1] Berndt published valuable monographs on Aboriginal Australians, including Women's Changing ceremonies in Northern Australia (1950).

One of Berndt’s best known collaborators from the aboriginal communities was the Maung woman Mondalmi, who worked with her.

[3] For her work, Berndt was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute in London.

The collection is conserved in the Berndt Museum of Anthropology, founded by the couple in 1976 at the University of Western Australia.