Name: Marie Sklodowska

Date of Birth: November 7, 1867

Place of Birth: Warsaw, Poland

Occupation: Physicist and chemist

Spouse: Pierre Curie (married in 1985), professor of the School of Physics

Children: Irene (born in 1897) and Eve (born in 1904)

Education: Studying physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne University, Paris (1891) where she met her husband

Works:

• Marie and her husband worked together investigating radioactivity, building on the work of the German physicist Roentgen and the French physicist Becquerel.
• In July 1898, they announced the discovery of a new chemical element, polonium.
• At the end of 1898, they announced the discovery of radium.
• In 1903, the Curies, along with Becquerel, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
• In 1906, Pierre was knocked down and killed by a carriage.
• Marie took over his husband's teaching post, becoming the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne, and devoted herself continuing the work that they had begun together.
• In 1911, she received the second Nobel Prize, for Chemistry
• During World War One, Marie helped to equip ambulances with x-ray equipment, which she drove to the front lines herself.
• The International Red Cross made her head of its radiological service and she held training courses for medical orderlies and doctors in the new techniques.
• Despite her success, Marie continued to face great opposition from male scientists in France, and she never received significant financial benefits from her work.
• By the late 1920s, her health was beginning to deteriorate. She died on July 4, 1934 from leukaemia, caused by exposure to high-energy radiation from her research.
• The Curies' eldest daughter, Irene, was a scientist and awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Adopted from: http://www.bbc.eo.uk/history/historic_figures/curie_marie.shtml (September 29, 2019)

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