Curie, Marie Sklowdowska

(1867-1934)

   physicist and Nobel laureate

   Of Polish origin (born in Warsaw), Marie Sklowdowska continued her studies in Paris at the sor-bonne, where she graduated at the top of her class in physics and mathematics. In 1894, she met the French chemist pierre curie, whom she married the following year. Beginning in 1896, they worked together on radioactivity (to which she gave the name), building on the work of henri becquerel and the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen. In 1898, after searching for the source of radioactivity, the Curies announced the discovery of the elements polonium and radium. In 1906, after the death of Pierre Curie in a road accident, Marie Curie took over his post at the Sorbonne, becoming also the first woman to teach there. In 1910, she collaborated with the French chemist André Debierne to isolate pure radium metal. Later (1914), the University of Paris built the Institut du radium (now the Institut Curie) to facilitate their further research. During World War I, Curie helped to equip ambulances with X-ray equipment and drove them to the front lines. The International Red Cross made her chief of the Radiological Service, and she and her colleagues at the Institut du radium held courses instructing medics and doctors in the use of this new technique. Continued exposure to radium would, however, eventually cause her health to deteriorate and, after some years of illness, she died of its effects. Her remains were transferred to the Panthéon in 1995. Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize in physics along with her husband and Henri Becquerel in 1903, and the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911.