She received a scholarship to study at the Presbyterian Ladies' College and she entered the University of Melbourne at age 17.

[4] Other notable Australians who also graduated in her class included Dame Kate Isabel Campbell, Lucy Meredith Bryce, Jean Littlejohn, and Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet.

Hospital authorities had at first been reluctant to employ her on the grounds that it had no toilet facilities for women doctors.

She and Burnet demonstrated that there was more than one strain of the virus, a fact that would be important in the later development of the Salk vaccine.

When she returned to Australia in 1934 she married dermatologist Joseph Ivan Connor, and they had two daughters, Joan and Merran.

She appears on the 45 cent stamp with fellow University of Melbourne graduate, Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet.