Ursula Hope McConnel (1888–1957) was a Queensland anthropologist and ethnographer best remembered for her work with, and the records she made of, the Wik Mungkan people of Cape York Peninsula.

First trained at University College London, then supervised by Professor Alfred Radcliffe-Brown in the Department of Anthropology, University of Sydney, McConnel was one of the first women to be trained in anthropology and then go out to observe Aboriginal Australians in remote areas, systematically documenting, recording, and describing their culture, mythology, beliefs, and way of life.

[3] Raised on the Cressbrook property in what has been described as an "austere" and "repressed" family environment, she was:[1] Ursula McConnell has been described as a brave, free-thinking, open questing woman with sometimes strong emotions, growing up at a time when the first wave of feminism n Australia was coming of age: " .. a perfect test case for the various ideas of self-creation .."[1] who also, during troubled times studying, came under the shaping influence of her brother-in-law and psychologist Elton Mayo, husband of her sister Dorothea McConnel:[1] She was once engaged, never married, and being financially secure in her investments in wool bonds, devoted her life to her anthropological research endeavours in Western Cape York Peninsula, driven by a strong sense of duty and justice to the people with whom she had worked.

On her return, under Professor Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (University of Sydney) she started doing ethnographic research amongst the Wik Mungkan people, Cape York Peninsula.

[3] Her series of articles in Walkabout magazine[4][5][6] in 1936 promoted her research, and her concern over the treatment by government and missions of aboriginal people, to the general public.