Marie Curie l'industrie nationale" ). That same year Pierre Curie entered her life; it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together. Pierre Curie was an instructor at the School of Physics and Chemistry, the "École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris" (ESPCI). They were introduced by the Polish physicist, Professor Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who had learned that she was looking for a larger laboratory space, something that Wierusz-Kowalski thought Pierre Curie had access to. Though Curie did not have a large laboratory, he was able to find some space for Skłodowska where she
Marie Curie of Paris decided to retain the chair that had been created for her late husband and to offer it to Marie. She accepted it, hoping to create a world-class laboratory as a tribute to her husband Pierre. She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. Curie's quest to create a new laboratory did not end with the University of Paris, however. In her later years, she headed the Radium Institute ("Institut du radium", now Curie Institute, "Institut Curie"), a radioactivity laboratory created for her by the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris. The