Nelly Hooper Ludbrook

Nelly Hooper Ludbrook MBE (1907–1995) was an Australian geologist and palaeontologist.

Nelly Hooper Woods (better known as Nell Hooper Ludbrook) was born in Yorketown, South Australia on 14 June 1907. Her mother had studied as a teacher at the University of Adelaide in 1900. After attending Mount Barker High School, Nell enrolled in the University of Adelaide in 1926, taking her B.A. in 1928 and a teaching degree, as she had not studied enough prerequisite science subjects to enrol in a B.Sc.. She studied geology and mathematics, and appealed to Dr. C.T. Madigan for a research project in geology. She worked on the fossil mollusc collection of Sir Joseph Verco for many years and pursued her M.A. Nell married Dr. Wallis Verco Ludbrook, whom she had met at the University of Adelaide where he was studying his B.Sc. and she her B.A., in 1935, and Nell and Wallis moved to Canberra. Irene Crespin, palaeontologist with the Commonwealth government, moved from Melbourne to Canberra, and employed Nell Ludbrook as an Assistant Geologist from 1942 to 1949, working on the statistics of minerals for the war effort for the Department of Mines.

In 1950, Ludbrook travelled to England to study molluscs at the Imperial College of Science at the British Museum (Natural History), while her husband was away for work. Wallis Ludbrook died in 1951, and Nell was encouraged by her husband's family to remain in England and take her PhD

Ludbrook worked as a consultant in palaeontology for the South Australian Department of Mines after her retirement, The P. ludbrookiae zone in the Eromanga and Surat basins is named in her honour.

Ludbrook was the first female President of the Geological Society of Australia in 1968. She was the first female president of the Royal Society of South Australia in 1961. She received the Sir Joseph Verco medal from them in 1963.