Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010
Marie Curie (1867-1934)
Two-time Nobel laureate Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium, founded the concept of radiology and — above all — made the possibility of a scientific career seem within reach for countless girls and women around the world. The first woman to receive the Nobel Prize and the first female Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences at the Sorbonne in Paris, Curie was beloved by her colleagues for her calm, singular focus, lack of pretense and professional drive. Her work with radiation is now part of the most sophisticated cancer-treatment protocols in the world, though she herself succumbed to leukemia after decades of daily radiation exposure.