Marie Sklodowska Curie was the first woman to obtain a degree in physics, the first woman in the history of France to receive a doctoral degree, the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize, the first person and the only woman to win the Nobel twice. She also was the only Nobel winner to win twice in multiple sciences, and the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Pantheon in Paris.

She discovered two of the elements that make up the periodic table – radium and polonium. She developed the theory of radioactivity and coined the word itself. She founded two major centers of medical research – the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw.