DATES
November 7, 1867 - 1934
ABOUT HER
Maria Sklodowska-Curie (1867-1934) was the first person to win two Nobel
Prizes -- one for Physics in 1903 and one for Chemistry in 1911. She
was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics and one of the
first female scientists to achieve world-wide fame.
She contributed
profoundly to the understanding of radioactivity and with her husband,
Pierre Curie, managed to isolate pure radium and radium components.
She was the first female lecturer and professor at the Sorbonne University
in Paris (1906).
She earned 15 gold
medals, 19 degrees, and other honors, but never forgot the education
of other women. In addition to raising a daughter to also win a Nobel
Prize for Chemistry and putting her sister, Bronia, through school,
during college she also took part in covertly reading in Polish to women
workers as part of the "free university."
On July 4, 1934,
Maria Sklodowska-Curie died of leukemia, caused by her exposure to the
radium that she had spent her life studying.
AWARDS/HONORS
- With Pierre
Curie was awarded the Davy Medal of the Royal Society
- The first woman
to win a Nobel Prize for Physics (1903)
- First woman
to lecture and to become a professor at the Sorbonne (1906)
- The Nobel Prize
for Chemistry, for the isolation of pure radium (1911)
QUOTE
"Marie Curie is, of all celebrated beings, the one whom fame has
not corrupted," Albert Einstein.
