Maria Skłodowska Curie

She was a physicist and chemist. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity, the first twice-honored Nobel laureate (and still the only one in two different sciences) and the first female professor at the University of Paris.

She was born in Warsaw, her parents was Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowski. Maria was the youngest of five children. Maria's early years were marked by the death of her sister Zofia (from typhus) and, two years later, the death of her mother (tuberculosis). These events caused her to give up her Roman Catholic religion and become an agnostic.

Skłodowska studied mathematics, physics and chemistry at the University of Paris. In early 1893 she graduated first in her undergraduate class. A year later, also at the University of Paris, she obtained her master's degree in mathematics. In 1903, she becoming the first woman in France to complete a doctorate. At the University of Paris, she met and married Pierre Curie.