Marie Curie

Who is Marie Curie?

Marie Curie was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, and moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, becoming a naturalised French citizen and the defining scientist of her adopted country. Working with her husband Pierre Curie, she conducted pioneering research on radioactivity, a term she coined, and discovered the elements polonium and radium. In 1903 she shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. In 1911 she won a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for the isolation of radium, making her the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. During the First World War she developed mobile radiography units to aid battlefield surgeons. She died in 1934 from aplastic anaemia, likely caused by her prolonged exposure to radiation.

Sources: Susan Quinn, 'Marie Curie: A Life' (1995) · Ève Curie, 'Madame Curie' (1937)