Well known for her autobiographies, in particular her first memoir, The Road from Coorain, she also was Smith College's first woman president (1975–1985) and most recently served as a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The British manners and accent ingrained by her parents clashed with her peers' Australian habits, provoking taunts and jeers.

This resulted in her mother enrolling her at Abbotsleigh, a private girls school, where Ker Conway found intellectual challenge and social acceptance.

After finishing her education at Abbotsleigh, she enrolled at the University of Sydney, where she studied History and English and graduated with honours in 1958.

Upon graduation, Ker Conway sought a trainee post in the Department of External Affairs, but the all-male committee turned down her application.

She received thirty-eight honorary degrees and awards from North American and Australian colleges, universities and women's organizations.

Ker Conway launched the Ada Comstock Scholars program, initially proposed by her predecessor Thomas Mendenhall.

One of Ker Conway's more notable accomplishments is a program she initiated to help Ada Comstock Scholars on welfare.

Eventually the state of Massachusetts, convinced about the importance of the program, changed its welfare system so that scholarship students wouldn't lose their benefits.

The book begins with her early childhood at the remote sheep station Coorain near Mossgiel, New South Wales.

She describes her intellectual development and later her feelings when she realizes that there is a bias against women; based upon her sex, she is denied a traineeship at the Australian foreign service.

In 2001, Chapman Pictures produced a television film, The Road from Coorain, featuring Katherine Slattery as the grown-up Jill and Juliet Stevenson as her mother.