Irène Joliot-Curie

Irène Joliot-Curie (French: [iʁɛn ʒɔljo kyʁi] ⓘ; <a href="/facts/Birth_name/FctFJcbg">née</a> Curie; 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French <a href="/facts/Chemist/N09K7Bdm">chemist</a> and <a href="/facts/Physicist/cQcgvSIm">physicist</a> who received the 1935 <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize_in_Chemistry/8Nb8Ajjy">Nobel Prize in Chemistry</a> with her husband, <a href="/facts/Fr%25C3%25A9d%25C3%25A9ric_Joliot-Curie/qTYsRfqb">Frédéric Joliot-Curie</a>, for their discovery of <a href="/facts/Induced_radioactivity/8BW4GmHe">induced radioactivity</a>. They were the <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize/3z1Y3oFL">second married couple</a>, after her parents, to win the Nobel Prize, adding to the <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize/3z1Y3oFL">Curie family legacy</a> of five Nobel Prizes. This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date.
Her mother Marie Skłodowska-Curie and herself also form the only mother–daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes whilst Pierre and Irène Curie form the only father-daughter pair to have won Nobel Prizes by the same occasion, whilst there are six father-son pairs who have won Nobel Prizes by comparison.
She was also one of the first three women to be a member of a French government, becoming <a href="/facts/Undersecretary_of_State_(France)/1lfTKros">undersecretary</a> for Scientific Research under the <a href="/facts/Popular_Front_(France)/9Rd7xzkK">Popular Front</a> in 1936. Both children of the Joliot-Curies, <a href="/facts/H%25C3%25A9l%25C3%25A8ne_Langevin-Joliot/d2bxBsV0">Hélène</a> and <a href="/facts/Pierre_Joliot/jVVKR4zt">Pierre</a>, are also scientists.
In 1945, she was one of the six commissioners of the new <a href="/facts/French_Alternative_Energies_and_Atomic_Energy_Commission/YPwAJk03">French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission</a> (CEA) created by de Gaulle and the <a href="/facts/Provisional_Government_of_the_French_Republic/rfQopB3n">Provisional Government of the French Republic</a>. She died in Paris on 17 March 1956 from an <a href="/facts/Acute_leukemia/ct8BdXmo">acute leukemia</a> linked to her exposure to <a href="/facts/Polonium/G4rzsyjP">polonium</a> and <a href="/facts/X-ray/wseP79cN">X-rays</a>.

Irène Joliot-Curie open-in-new

Irène Joliot-Curie