Marie Curie

1867 - 1934

Born in Warsaw, Poland on November 7, 1867, Maria (Marie) Sklodowska is remembered as a talented scientist who made huge strides in finding cancer treatments. She also discovered radium and polonium while conducting research at the School of Chemistry and Physics in Paris. 

After her mother died and her father could no longer support her, she moved to Paris to live with her sister. In Paris, she attended Sorbonne University where she spent all of her time reading and studying physics and mathematics. In 1894, she met her husband, Pierre Curie, who she married later that year. Together they worked as scientific researchers, diving into the phenomenon of invisible rays by uranium. Marie found small quantities of a mineral called pitchblende which is much more radioactive than pure uranium. After hefty research, she was convinced that she had discovered a new element. Many other scientists doubted her findings.

Pierre and Marie set off to find out more about the unknown element. Eventually, they extracted a black powder from the pitchblende that turned out to be 330 times more radioactive than uranium. They had found the unknown element and named it polonium. Nearly a decade and a half later, after physically and emotionally demanding work, Marie isolated radium as radium chloride. During this difficult time, the Curies became very sick and physically exhausted- something we now understand as the early symptoms of radiation sickness.

In 1903, Marie and Pierre were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in conjunction with Henri Becquerel for their separate discoveries regarding radioactivity. When Pierre was killed in a tragic accident in 1906, Marie continued his job as a Professor at Sorbonne University.

During World War l, Marie worked tirelessly to develop the first mobile X-ray that would later be used on the battlefield. In 1914, she worked closely with her 17-year-old daughter on the front lines using these machines to locate bullets, shrapnel, and fractures in wounded soldiers.