Elsie Conway FRSE (née Phillips, 15 March 1902 – 22 July 1992) was a British phycologist.
In 1942, as imports became disrupted by the Second World War she became part of a group investigating whether agar could be produced for pharmaceutical purposes from marine algae found around the UK coast.
The collaborators included Sheina Marshall, Andrew Picken Orr and Lillie Newton.
[3] Conway was also involved in a wartime project to remove bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) from land newly required for agriculture.
[3] In 1952, in collaboration with Shelia Lodge, Elsie Burrows, and Harry Powell, she studied the coastline of Fair Isle, one of the Shetland islands, discovering that the intertidal zonation differed from other rocky shores around the United Kingdom due to the severe wave action and high local humidity.
[3] She returned to British Columbia between 1972 and 1974 for further study of the genus Porphyra in Canada's northeast Pacific region.