Marie Curie has conducted research in the field of radioactivity and received a Nobel Prize twice! It was very special for the time in which she lived that a woman did scientific work and became a professor (at the Sorbonne in Paris).
Chemistry
Marie was born in Poland in 1867 (her maiden name is Sklodowska) and wanted to study chemistry. She was an exceedingly attractive woman, a delicate blonde with fair, blue eyes,” burbled a New York Times profile from 1903. She moved to Paris, where she met her husband Pierre Curie, they have two daughter’s.
Radioactive radiation
After studying at university, she conducted research into radioactive radiation. That had just been discovered at the time. For this work, Marie, together with her husband Pierre, received the Nobel Prize for Physics. Later she also discovered two radioactive substances: radium and polonium. Marie Curie died in 1934 from leukemia, which she most likely developed because she was exposed to radiation so often during her work.