At the 1964 European Orienteering Championships, she won a silver medal in the relay for Switzerland, and placed tenth in the individual event.
However, back then she was not allowed to join the exclusively male Alpine climbing club at the Berne University (which was funded by her grandfather).
During this time, she held academic positions in the Free University Amsterdam and the Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna, but also worked for Shell as a consultant biostratigrapher.
[2] Perch-Nielsen was awarded the Steno Medal in 1998, for her work in micropaleontology in Denmark and Greenland, and as a pioneer in the study of coccoliths.
[6][7] In 2003 she was awarded Honorary Membership of the International Nannoplankton Association and in 2007 she got the Prize by the Somazzi Foundation for her work in geology and equal opportunity.