Johanna Westerdijk

Early life

Johanna Westerdijk (called “Hans” by friends) was born on January 4, 1883 in Nieuwer-Amstel, a small village in Amsterdam, and died on November 15, 1961 at 78 years old in Barnn, Netherlands

J. 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.

Education

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

Career

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.

Inspiration for women and students

In 1917 she was the first female professor in the Netherlands, serving as associate professor of plant pathology in Utrecht University and in 1930 at the University of Amsterdam with a total of 55 PhD students earning their degrees under her supervision in a period of 35 years. Almost half of them were women, being a source of inspiration for students interested in the history of women in science.

She wrote over 70 publications covering a broad aspect of plant diseases and mycology, but her main interest was in pathogenic diseases of tress and physiological disease of plants and how to control them. Several of her publications involved trials of chemicals for disease control

Johanna Westerdijk was described by journalists as a young, natural, simple, and strong with a pleasant manner and a great sense of humor. She was, also known by her close friends as loving to party, drink and dance and without an interest in marriage

When she wanted to test their progress of her students, she took them to a fancy bakery surrounded by fashionable ladies and suddenly ask them questions such as “OK, now what can you tell me about yellow disease or any other disease”. She also had her own tradition at every new PhD ceremony where a flag was raised and three geese wearing white, red and blue bows around their necks paraded around the building. The doctor and his/her professor advisor would plant a tree in the one and a half hectare garden. This tradition became legendary

All of the people who worked on their PhD in Baarn were inspired by the atmosphere and the influence of the laboratory’s slogan “For fine minds, the art is to mix work and parties” which Johanna Westerdijk had carved in stone above the entrance to the room for practical work.

Elm disease research

In 1920s she was involved in understanding a new lethal vascular disease in elms (Dutch elm disease), raising money from different municipalities in the Netherlands, which she assigned to her first PhD student Marie Beatrice Schwarz.

Schwarz isolated and inoculated healthy elm, concluding that a fungus was killing the elms, later J. Westerdijk assigned another student, Christine Johanna Buisman to confirm the finding from Schwarz that Ophiostoma novo- ulmi was the cause of the disease. Buisman additionally bred elms for disease resistance, but unfortunately the elm that she developed was highly susceptible to another fungal disease caused by a Nectria sp.

Epilogue

Johana Westerdijk is known for the high quality of plant pathologists that she supervised of which half where women. She is also credited for maintaining and increasing the fungi culture collections of the Central Bureau of Fungal Cultures, one of the three prestigious world collection of fungi in culture, and for helping to understand and control Dutch elm disease

Honors and awards

Eponymous species

Several fungus species have been name in honour of Westerdijk, including: