Margaret Sylvia Gilliland (8 September 1917 – 18 May 1990) was an Australian biochemist. The daughter of Robert Dugald Bertie and Kathleen Crommelin, she was born Margaret Sylvia Bertie in Grenfell, New South Wales; her uncle Charles Henry Bertie was a librarian and historian. She received a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Melbourne. In 1942, she married Alexander Forbes Gilliland; the couple had three children. Gilliland later worked as a biochemistry demonstrator at the University of Queensland. She received a MSc from the University in 1962 and became a lecturer the following year. In 1969, she spent a year studying at the University of California, San Diego, funded by a graduate fellowship provided by the American Association of University Women.