Alice Wilson

Alice Evelyn Wilson was Canada's first professional female geologist. Joining the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in 1909 as a clerk, she overcame institutional gender discrimination that barred women from joining remote field camps by conducting extensive geological surveys on foot and bicycle across the Ottawa-St. Lawrence Lowlands.

Wilson completed her doctorate in geology at the University of Chicago and published masterworks on Ordovician invertebrate fossils and regional Paleozoic stratigraphy. In 1938, she became the first woman elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and in 1935 was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).