#OnThisDay, 10 Feb 1917, plant pathologist Johanna Westerdijk becomes the first woman appointed as a professor in the Netherlands when she joins Utrecht University.
Two of her PhD students, Bea Schwarz and then Christine Buisman, identified the fungus causing a disease in elm trees. They were building on Dina Spierenburg's work which had identified it as a new disease.
Hence it being called Dutch Elm disease.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #Histodons
