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Maria Skłodowska-Curie
File:Mariecurie2.jpgMaria Skłodowska-Curie (1867-1934)
Born	November 7 1867 Warsaw, Poland
Died	July 4 1934 Sancellemoz, France
Nationality	Polish
Alma mater	Sorbonne and ESPCI
Known for	Radioactivity
Awards	File:Nobel.svg Nobel Prize for Physics (1903) File:Nobel.svg Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1911)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics and Chemistry
Institutions	Sorbonne
Doctoral advisor	Henri Becquerel
Doctoral students	André-Louis Debierne Marguerite Catherine Perey Émile Henriot
Notes
The only person to win two Nobel Prizes in different science fields. Married to Pierre Curie (m. 1895), their children include Irène Joliot-Curie and Ève Curie.

Maria Skłodowska-Curie (born Maria Skłodowska; known in France, where she lived most of her life, as Marie Curie, aka Madame Curie; Warsaw, November 7, 1867 – July 4 1934, Sancellemoz, France) was a Polish-French physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in radioactivity, the first two-time Nobel laureate (the only one in two different sciences), and the first female professor at the Sorbonne.

She was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Polish parents and lived there to age 24. In 1891 she went to Paris, France, to study science. She obtained her higher degrees; and conducted nearly all her scientific work there, and became a naturalized French citizen. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris, France, and in her home town, Warsaw, in resurrected Poland.

Biography

Born in Russia,

I became Marie when young Marie enrolled in Sorbonne in 1897. At that time I had already started my education but wanted to transfer so I could get the things I needed to be able to work on my accomplishments.I have an amazing memory and a diligent work ethic, neglecting even food and sleep while studying. I graduated from high school at the top of my class at age fifteen.

I attended high school at the Collège Sévigné, then studied physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne. (I would later become the Sorbonne's first female professor.) In the spring of 1893, I graduated first in my undergraduate class. A year later, also at the Sorbonne, I obtained my master's degree in mathematics.

At the Sorbonne, I met and married Pierre Curie, a fellow-instructor. Together we studied Radioactive materials.

I was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. Eight years later, I received the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, "in recognition of my services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element".

After my husband's 1906 death in a street accident, I reputedly had an affair with physicist Paul Langevin— a married man who had left his wife.

In 1921, I toured the United States, where I was welcomed to raise funds for research on radium.

In my later years, I was disappointed by the many physicians and makers of cosmetics who used radioactive material without precautions.

My death near Sallanches in 1934 was from aplastic anemia, almost certainly due to massive exposure to radiation, as much of my work had been carried out in a shed with no safety measures being taken, as the damaging effects of hard radiation were not yet known. I carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in my pocket.

I was initially buried at the cemetery in Sceaux, where Pierre lay, but in 1995, to honor their work, their ashes were transferred to the Panthéon, Paris|Panthéon.

My eldest daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935.