Irène Joliot-Curie

Born on 12 September 1897 in Paris, Irène Joliot-Curie was a physical chemist who received a share of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her research on artificially induced radioactivity. Joliot-Curie’s parents were Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. Irène received her doctorate in 1925 after having worked on radioactivity with Marie at the University of Paris. In 1934 Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, her husband, discovered that they could induce stable light elements to become radioactive by bombarding them with alpha particles. The following year, the two scientists were awarded the Nobel. Irène later experimented with the interaction of neutrons and heavy elements, research that was a step toward uranium fission. After World War II Irène served as director of the Institut du Radium at the University of Paris and commissioner of the French Atomic Energy Commission. She died of leukemia in 1956 at age 58. (Photo credit: Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, William G. Myers Collection)

Date in History: 12 September 1897