Following her studies, Kennard worked as a research assistant at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge from 1944 to 1948, working with
Max Perutz on the structure of
hemoglobin. After this she moved to London, working at the
Medical Research Council RC Vision Research Unit from 1948 to 1951. In this role she studied
rhodopsin and
vitamin A with
Hamilton Hartridge. In 1961 Kennard returned to work in Cambridge (where she had lived whilst working in London) to the University's
chemistry department to set up a Crystallography Unit. She remained in this department until retirement but never held a University post as she was seconded from the MRC. During her career she produced over 200 scientific papers and wrote several books. In 1972, Kennard was among a small group of crystallographers who set up the European Crystallographic Committee (now the
European Crystallographic Association) and she became its president from 1975–81. Kennard was best known as a founder of the
Cambridge Structural Database and first director (from 1965 to 1997) of the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. The resource was borne of her belief that "collective use of data would lead to the discovery of new knowledge which transcends the results of individual experiments". Kennard held an MRC special appointment from 1974 to 1989 and was visiting professor at the
University of London from 1988 to 1990. == Honours and awards ==