Women Scientists

Irene Joliot-Curie 1897-1956

At a glance:

discovered artificial radioactivity, daughter of Pierre & Marie Curie, Nobel for Chemistry 1935

The daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie, Irene helped run the field hospitals her mother had established during the First World War, exposing herself to large doses of radiation. She went to work at the Radium Institute in Paris and in 1926 married Frederic Joliot, a pupil of her mother's. Jointly they discovered in 1935 that one element could be turned into another by bombardment with alpha particles, creating radioactive isotopes. Their discovery allowed radioactive materials which are used extensively in medicine to be created quickly, cheaply and plentifully. Joliot-Curie was accidentally exposed to polonium in 1946 and died of radiation induced leukaemia at the age of 58. She and her husband received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry jointly in 1935. Their work pioneered the research on radium nuclei that led to Lise Meitner(qv) and others to nuclear fission. The Joliot Curies were worried how this work might be used and in 1939,placed all their documents on nuclear fission in the vaults of the Academie des Sciences where it remained until 1949.
Irene Joliot-Curie

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