Fátima Sequeira Dias

Maria de Fátima Silva de Sequeira Dias, Full Professor at the University of the Azores, researcher, and writer of renowned merit, passed away on 1 January 2013 in Ponta Delgada, aged 54. She was a member of the teaching staff of the Department of Economics and Management, leaving a profound void in the Azorean academia and regional critical thought.

The Azores has lost a firm and enlightened voice in the defence of the Region’s economic and social development, one that was always attentive, rigorous, and intellectually demanding in the analysis of the Azorean reality.

She was born on 12 October 1958 in Ponta Delgada. She graduated in History from the University of the Azores in 1981, pursuing a solid international academic education. She completed a Master’s degree in Development Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles, a postgraduate degree in Contemporary European History at the Institute of European Studies in Brussels, and conducted research at leading institutions, namely the Centre for Maritime Economic History in Bergen and the Centre for International Economics in Geneva. She completed her Doctorate in Economic History, and her thesis was distinguished with an international prize in the field of Economic History, a recognition of the scientific rigour and innovative contribution of her research.

She also carried out post-doctoral work at several European institutions, consolidating an academic career of international standing. The author of approximately two dozen works, she dedicated herself primarily to the economic history of the Azores, studying and publicising the Region’s structural institutions and companies, such as the Ponta Delgada Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Ateneu Comercial, Casa Bensaúde, Fábrica de Tabaco Micaelense, SAAGA, SATA, and Ponta Delgada Airport.

Concurrently, she published works on diverse themes, notably 450 Years of the City of Ponta Delgada, Sentimental Dictionary of the Island of São Miguel, and The Jews in the Azores in the 19th and 20th Centuries, revealing a pluralistic perspective on Azorean history, culture, and identity.

Her death prompted numerous expressions of grief. The then Regional Secretary for Education, Science, and Culture, Luiz Fagundes Duarte, highlighted in a statement released by the Social Communication Support Office that Fátima Sequeira Dias “will remain, through her work, in the memory of all those who, over recent years, as students or scholars, have taken an interest in the history and economy of the Azores”.

In March 2013, the Ponta Delgada City Council posthumously awarded her the Municipal Gold Medal during a solemn session held in the Great Hall of the City Hall. Subsequently, her family donated a vast academic and bibliographic collection to the municipality, ensuring the preservation and continuity of her intellectual legacy.

Her funeral took place after a Requiem Mass at the São Joaquim Chapel of Rest in Ponta Delgada, where she was cremated.