(marya salomee sklodowska)

Overcoming poverty and great obstacles, Polish-born Marie Curie became the first woman to secure a degree in physics at the Sorbonne, the first woman to be appointed a professor at the Sorbonne, and the first woman to receive two Nobel prizes, the first in physics with her husband, Pierre, and the second, by herself, for the isolation of the elements polonium and radium. She was also the first woman to be elected to the 224-year old French Academy of Medicine and, in 1995, became the first woman to be buried in the French Pantheon for her own accomplishments.

Marie Curie was one of the most important women in history and one of the most influential scientists, man or woman, of the 19th and 20th centuries. Her perseverance in the discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium, netted her two Nobel prizes. This biography offers a complete picture of her as a scientist and a woman.