Became a world-renowned physicist during a time when women weren’t regarded for these types of roles.
Born in Poland, Curie left Warsaw in 1891 to study physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne in Paris. There, she met her husband Pierre Curie, and together they began researching the separation of radium from radioactive residues.
Their work covering radioactivity earned them the Nobel Prize for Physics.
After her husband died in 1906, Curie threw herself into her career and became the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne. She later earned a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry for her work in isolating pure radium.
Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
Her groundbreaking work advanced the use of radiation to treat illness and furthered research around nuclear physics.
