Jimena Fernández de la Vega

Jimena Fernández de la Vega y Lombán was a Spanish doctor, geneticist, professor, and one of the first Galician women to earn a medical degree. She specialized in medical genetics and worked closely with prominent Spanish scientists including Roberto Nóvoa Santos, Gustavo Pittaluga, and Gregorio Marañón. She was also the first director of the Genetics and Constitution Section at the University of Madrid's Faculty of Medicine, which served as a gateway for the development of genetics in Spanish medicine. Alongside her twin sister Elisa, she is remembered as a trailblazer for women in Spanish higher education and medicine. Fernández de la Vega spent her later years as medical director of various spas in Spain engaged in balneotherapy, a traditional medicine technique. She died in 1984 in Santiago de Compostela.