HEROES 

OF STEM

Marie Curie was a Polish / French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win a Nobel Prize twice and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris.

Born in Warsaw, in the Kingdom of Poland, she studied at Warsaw's clandestine Flying University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, at the age of 24, she followed her older sister, Bronisława, to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel she won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Her achievements included the development of the theory of radioactivity, a term that she coined, techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies into the treatment of neoplasms were conducted using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw. Both remain major centers of medical research today. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.