Hello, I am Marie Curie. I was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. In my time, I was one of the first female scientists to win worldwide fame. I was also one of the greatest scientists of that century. I had degrees in mathematics and physics.

I was the winner of two Nobel Prizes! One of the Nobel prize was for Physics, which was awarded in 1903. The other one was for Chemistry, which was awarded in 1911. Throughout my life, I performed pioneering studies with radium and polonium and contributed profoundly to the understanding of radioactivity. I named polonium after my birth place. I will talk about more of how I contributed with radioactivity on the What is Radioactivity Page.

Do you know why I was so famous? It was because that I was known for my many firsts: I was the first to use the term 'radioactivity' for this phenomenon; I was the first female to win a physics Nobel Prize; I was the first female lecturer and professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris; I was the first mother-Nobel Prize Laureate of daughter-Nobel PrizeLaureate; and, I received 15 gold medals, 19 degrees, and other honors.

I was born as the fifth child of Bronsilawa Boguska, a pianist, singer, and a teacher. My dad's name was Wladyslaw Sklodowski, who was a professor of math and physics. When I was little, I was remarkable for my prodigious memory. When I was 16, I won a gold medal on completion of my secondary education at the Russian lycee. Because of my father's lost of savings through bad investment, I had to take work as a teacher and, at the same time, I had to take part clandestinely in the nationalist "free university", reading in Polish to women workers.

In 1891, I went to Paris and began to follow the lectures of Paul Appel, Gabriel Lippmann, and Edmond Bouty at the Sorbonne. There, it was my privilege to meet physicists who were already well known: Jean Perrin, Charles Maurain, and Aime Cotton. I worked very hard those years. I began work in Lippmann's research laboratory and in 1894 I was placed second in the licence of mathematical science. In that spring, I met my husband, Pierre Curie. We got married on July 25, 1895.

Before my marriage to Pierre, Pierre Curie had already established an impressive reputation. In 1880, he and his brother Jacques had discovered piezoelectricity whereby physical pressure applied to a crystal resulted in the creation of an electric potential. However, shorly after we got married, he subjugated his research to my interests.