Marie Curie
1867 – 1934 Polish-French physicist, chemist
Physicist and chemist who pioneered the study of radioactivity and won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
- Affiliations
- University of Paris, Curie Institute
Marie Curie, born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, moved to Paris to study and became a pioneer of the science of radioactivity, a term she coined. Working with her husband Pierre Curie, she discovered the elements polonium and radium. She won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, shared with Pierre and Henri Becquerel, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911, the first person to win in two sciences. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first female professor at the University of Paris. Years of exposure to radiation ruined her health, and she died of a blood disease linked to that work.