Marie Curie

Marie Curie (born Maria Skłodowska) was a Polish-born, later naturalised French physicist and chemist, and a central figure in the history of modern science. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, and the only individual ever awarded Nobels in two different scientific fields: Physics and Chemistry. Born in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, she studied at the clandestine Flying University before moving to Paris, where she carried out pioneering research on radioactivity. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel for their work on radioactive phenomena, and later received the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the elements radium and polonium, isolating radium, and investigating its compounds. In 1906 she became the first female professor at the University of Paris. Together, Marie and Pierre inaugurated the Curie family’s remarkable legacy of Nobel Prizes, and her fierce dedication to experiment and public service permanently changed the trajectory of 20th‑century science.