Ursula W. Goodenough (born March 16, 1943) is a retired Professor of Biology Emerita at Washington University in St. Louis, where she researched on eukaryotic algae.

She authored the textbook Genetics and the best-selling book The Sacred Depths of Nature and speaks regularly about religious naturalist orientation and evolution.

She says that realizing that a child's development is influenced by many people in their lives other than their mother has helped her achieve both her personal and professional goals.

[3] She also joined physicist Claude Bernard and earth-scientist Michael Wysession for 10 years, teaching a course called The Epic of Evolution, directed at non-science majors.

[3] In 2002, Goodenough was a member of a five-scientist panel invited by the Mind and Life Institute as part of an ongoing series of seminars on Western science for Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, and his inner circle of monk scholars.

[11] Goodenough and colleagues have studied the molecular basis and evolution of life-cycle transitions in the flagellated green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

These include genes responsible for mate recognition, uniparental inheritance of chloroplast DNA, and gametic differentiation, allowing analysis of their function and evolution during speciation.

[12] In addition, they have established connections between thylakoid organization and photosynthetic capacity and researched the assembly of the green alga's cell walls.

[13] They have also elucidated structural features of ciliary motility and explored the potential of forming lipid bodies for producing algal biodiesel as a transportation fuel.

From 1996 to 1998, she was an adjunct member of Trends in Early Research Careers at the NRC, and in 1996, she became the president of the Phi Beta Kappa at Washington University.

In 1999, she was a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and a board member of the Science Writers Fellowship Program at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

In 1996, she was the IRAS Conference Co-Chair on the "Epic of Evolution" and a member of the Advisory Committee at the AAAS Program of Dialogue Between Science and Religion.

In 2006, she was the Vice President for Interdisciplinary Affairs at IRAS, and in 2012, she was the Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary Board Member and Secretary.