Marie Curie, née Sklodowska (7 November 1867–4 July 1934) was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist famous for her work on radioactivity. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity and the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry. Her husband Pierre Curie shared her Nobel prize in physics.

In 1891 she followed her older sister Bronis?awa to study in Paris, where she obtained her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and she is the only woman to win the award in two different fields.
In 1898, she named the first new chemical element that she discovered polonium for her native country.
In 1932 she founded a Radium Institute (now the Maria Sk?odowska–Curie Institute of Oncology) in her home town, Warsaw, headed by her physician sister.
Marie Sk?odowska-Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel prize and the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.
Nobel Prize in Physics (1903)
Davy Medal (1903)
Matteucci Medal (1904)
Elliott Cresson Medal (1909)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1911)

The lives of famous scientists are not always luxurious. The Curies reportedly used part of their award money to replace wallpaper in their Parisian home and install modern plumbing into a bathroom.