Patricia Woolley
| Pat Woolley | |
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| Born |
Patricia Woolley 1932 (age 85–86) Denmark, West Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
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| Doctoral advisor | Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe |
Patricia Woolley (born 1932) is Australian zoologist recognised for her work with marsupials, specifically the dasyurid family. Pseudantechinus woolleyae (Woolley's false antechinus) is named for her.
Patricia Woolley was born in 1932 in Denmark, Western Australia. Her mother was a nurse and her father a medical practitioner. She completed her Junior Certificate at Albany High School. After moving to Perth, Woolley sought to study science at Perth Modern School however at that time women were not allowed to study chemistry at the school, so she attended Perth Technical College and later Leederville Technical College instead. There she focused on mathematics and through the encouragement of a teacher went on to study mathematics at the University of Western Australia. After losing interest in mathematics, Woolley switched to zoology and graduated with a BSc in 1955. After graduation Woolley worked as a research assistant under Professor Harry Waring, researching marsupials. She did experimental work with Waring until moving with her husband to Canberra in 1960. She lectured in zoology at the Australian National University before deciding to work towards a Ph.D. After completing her Ph.D. in 1966, she worked as a lecturer and associate professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, retiring in 2000.
The majority of Woolley’s work focused on marsupial biology, dealing with species in both Australia and Papua New Guinea. For her Ph.D. she researched the sex differentiation in dasyurids, specifically in the Antechinus genus. One of the findings of her Ph.D. research was that certain dasyurid species are semelparous, meaning they live long enough to reproduce, and then die, which is unusual among mammals.
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