Marie Skłodowska-Curie, two-time Nobel Laureate, challenged
scientific theories and generally accepted beliefs about women’s
abilities, blazing a trail for generations of women scientists
and professionals to come. But for women in science today, there
is still much more trail that needs blazing. One hundred years
ago, on December 10, 1911, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
presented the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Skłodowska-Curie for
her discovery of the elements radium and polonium, making Madame
Curie the first–and still the only–person to have won the Nobel
Prize in two different scientific fields. Among the most
accomplished scientists in history, Skłodowska-Curie developed a
theory of radioactivity, founded two world-renowned medical
research centers, revolutionized scientific understanding of
chemistry and physics and laid the groundwork for the use of
radiation to fight cancer and other diseases A self-made woman
and passionate scholar, Skłodowska-Curie also broke down
barriers in a climate that