Johanna Westerdijk
| Johanna Westerdijk | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
4 January 1883 Nieuwer-Amstel, Netherlands |
| Died |
15 November 1961 (aged 78) Baarn, Netherlands |
| Fields | Plant pathology |
| Institutions |
Utrecht University University of Amsterdam |
| Alma mater | University of Amsterdam University of Munich University of Zurich (PhD) |
| Doctoral advisor | Hans Schinz |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | Westerd. |
Johanna "Hans" Westerdijk (Dutch pronunciation: [joːˈɦɑnaː ɦɑns ˈʋɛstərˌdɛik]; 4 January 1883 – 15 November 1961) was a Dutch plant pathologist and the first female professor in the Netherlands.
Johanna Westerdijk, called "Hans" by friends, was born on 4 January 1883 in Nieuwer-Amstel, a small village south of Amsterdam, and died on 15 November 1961 at 78 years old in Baarn, Netherlands.
Westerdijk came from a wealthy, intellectual and artistic family of doctors Bernard Westerdijk (1853–1927) and Aleida Catharina Scheffer (1857–1931) being the eldest child of three children. During her elementary school years she always refused to take embroidery classes or play with dolls like most of the girls of her time. Instead she enjoyed reading stories to other girls at her school. She mentioned to her teacher that she will make sure to earn enough money to have all her cleaning duties done for her.
She completed her secondary school at 17 years old and graduated from the Amsterdam school of girls. She was a gifted pianist and intended to become a professional pianist but a persistent neuritis in one arm made this impossible. Her interest in botany led her to attend Amsterdam University to follow the lectures of the famous botanist Hugo de Vries and work in his laboratory.
After finishing her biological studies in 1904 she decided to spend time in Munich and conduct research with moss, and a year later she moved to Zurich where she studied moss regeneration, earning her PhD degree in 1906 under the supervision of Professor H. Schinz.
In 1906, at 23 years old, she was offered a directorship position at Willie Commelin Scholten, a phytopathological laboratory in the Netherlands. The laboratory under her supervision became an internationally respected institution of phytopathology, being moved from Amsterdam to the Gran Villa Java in Baarn and recognized today with independent status as an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
While working as director of the phytopathological laboratory in 1908 she was in charge of keeping the International Association of Botanists collection of about 80 cultures of fungi. Under her supervision this collection expanded to over 10,000 strains of 6,000 different species of fungi, yeast and actinomycetes. Named the Central Bureau voor Schimmelcultures (Central Bureau of Fungal Cultures) the objective of this collection was and still is to keep a variety of fungi in cultures for distribution to research workers all over the world. In 1913 she became the first female recipient of a grant from the Buitenzorg (Indonesia) Fund, which she used to collect samples from a variety diseased crops such as tobacco, sugar, coffee, tea, etc., and made cultures of the fungi for the collection.
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