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First woman Nobel Llaureate
Marie Sklodowska Curie
Marie Sklodowska Curie was a French-Polish physicist and chemist. She was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. She was also the first female professor at the University of Paris (La Sorbonne), and in 1995 she became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris. She is renowned for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Floating University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1903, she won the Nobel Prize in Physics, from Russian Empire, in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel. She then shared her that Nobel Prize with her husband Pierre Curie and with the physicist Henri Becquerel. In 1911, she was the sole winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Her achievements included a theory of radioactivity, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements: polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasm, using radioactive isotopes. She founded the well-known Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw. During World War I, she established the first military field radiological centres. On July 4, 1934, Curie died of aplastic anemia due to years of exposure to radiation.
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