Women Who Dare - Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a scientist, a professor, a Nobel Prize winner, a wife, and a mother at a point in time, the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, when women’s roles were largely confined to the home. She is truly a woman who dared to confront the attitudes of the time and succeed in spite of them.

Among her many achievements are:

• First woman to win a Nobel Prize
• First person to win two Nobel Prizes
• The only person, male or female, to win a Nobel Prize in two separate sciences, physics and chemistry
• Discovered the elements radium and polonium
• First female professor at the Sorbonne in Paris
• During WWI, she organized a fleet of mobile x-ray machines for doctors on the front, and
• Her daughter went on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935

She also had the support from the people in her life. For her first Nobel Prize, the nominating committee were not going to nominate her until her husband, who shared the prize with her, said that the original research was hers. He was another person who dared.

Albert Einstein said of her, “Not only did she do outstanding work in her lifetime, and not only did she help humanity greatly by her work, but she invested all her work with the highest moral quality. All of this she accomplished with great strength, objectivity, and judgment. It is very rare to find all of these qualities in one individual.”

Marie Curie dared to be the person she was, the person she wanted to be. She is a tremendous example for all who dare to be.

References (and to learn more)

https://www.famousscientists.org/marie-curie/

https://www.livescience.com/38907-marie-curie-facts-biography.html

https://www.biography.com/scientist/marie-curie