Doreen Langley graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BSc in biochemistry and bacteriology. She began working at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. She then went back to Melbourne to be a dietitian at the 4th General US Army Hospital. After further study of nutrition Langley went to Papua New Guinea in 1947 as one of two women in a team of eight Australian scientists undertaking a survey of nutrition and the production, preparation and storage of food. She went to Gambia in 1950 with the British Medical Research Council Nutrition Unit and to Fiji, Niue and Tonga with the South Pacific Health Service, 1951-1954, collecting data concerning heights, weights and general nutritional status; family meals, local foods recipes and customs regarding food. Ms Langley was Principal of the Women’s College at the University of Sydney from 1957 till 1974.

Doreen Langley, PNG Nutrition Survey Expedition, diary notes, letters, press cuttings, original records, reports and publications, 1947; Fajara, Gambia, West Africa, nutrition survey, letters and diary notes, 1950; South Pacific Health Service, Fiji, diary notes, letters, maps and photographs, 1951-1953; Niue Island and Tonga Survey reports, diary notes, letters and photographs, 1952-1953. Susan Holmes’, Nutrition Survey Reports: Western Samoa, 1951; BSIP, 1952; Gilbert Islands, 1953; Cook Islands, 1954; Indian households, 1954.
N.b. 105 official photographs documenting the PNG Nutrition Survey in 1947 are held in the Women’s College Archives at 20/6/60.<P><B>See reel list for further details</B>