Irène Joliot-Curie Irène Joliot-Curie Irène Joliot-Curie (; 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French and Polish scientist, the daughter of Marie Curie and Pierre Curie and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Jointly with her husband, Joliot-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date. Both children of the Joliot-Curies, Hélène and Pierre, are also esteemed scientists. Irène was born in Paris, France. After a year of traditional education, which began when she was 10 years old, her mother Marie
Marie Curie visited Poland on the occasion of her father's death. In June 1903, supervised by Gabriel Lippmann, Curie was awarded her doctorate from the University of Paris. That month the couple were invited to the Royal Institution in London to give a speech on radioactivity; being a woman, she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to. Meanwhile, a new industry began developing, based on radium. The Curies did not patent their discovery and benefited little from this increasingly profitable business. In December 1903, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel