Marie Skłodowska-Curie: teacher, mentor, research center founder, and “la Patronne

This year (2011) marks the 100th Anniversary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Marie Skłodowska-Curie for her discoveries of radium and polonium and her studies of their properties. The United Nations has proclaimed 2011 as the “International Year of Chemistry”, partly in recognition of this 100th anniversary. A resolution of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland has also established 2011 as the Year of Maria Skłodowska-Curie. Marie Curie has been celebrated this year by a host of prestigious societies and in many countries all around the world for winning Nobel Prizes in both Physics (1903), for the discovery of radioactivity together with husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, and Chemistry (1911). She was the first woman to win Nobel Prizes in both Physics and Chemistry and the only one to date to win prizes in both physics and chemistry. Also remarkable was that after Pierre Curie’s tragic and untimely death in 1906, she was put in charge of his lectures and laboratory, thus marking the first time in France that a woman occupied such a prestigious academic position, and opening the way for other women to follow. The current article will focus on some of the other notable accomplishments of Marie Curie that are not as commonly recognized, including her organizational and persuasive abilities, and her unique contributions as a teacher, mentor, research center founder, and laboratory “la Patronne”.