About+Marie+Curie

About Marie Curie:

Marie Curie was a pysicist and chemist who lived in the mid/late 1800s and the early 1900s. She was born in Warsaw, Poland but left for Paris in 1891. She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 they got married a year after they met. She went to Sorbonne where she gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903. After the tragic death of her husband Marie Curie took over his position as the Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had ever held this position. She pioneered the study of radioactivity and won two Nobel prizes in her lifetime, one for physics and the other for chemistry, becoming the first woman to win any Nobel prize. She died in 1934 of Aplastic anemia almost certainly contracted from exposure to radiation. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation were not then known, and much of her work had been carried out in a shed, without proper safety measures. She was an amazing woman who made a difference in the world.