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Åbo Akademi collections LYDIA SESEMANN chemist 1845-1926 Lydia Sesemann was the first Finnish woman to complete a doctorate, but as this took place in a university abroad, little attention was given to the fact at the time. The newspaper Finlands Allmänna Tidning mentioned it briefly and Suomenlehti in Viipuri wrote: "Miss Sesemann from our town has taken the doctoral degree in the natural and mathematical sciences at the University of Zürich in the land of Switzerland." Daughter of a merchant in Viipuri, Lydia Sesemann moved to Germany with her mother after the death of her father in 1865. She studied at the University of Zürich from 1869 and defended her doctoral dissertation in organic chemistry in the spring of 1874. When Sesemann started her studies, there were fourteen women enrolled at the University, of whom nine came from Russia. Sesemann was among the first women in Europe to earn a degree in science and she was the first woman to complete a doctorate at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zürich.