Women in chemistry Women in chemistry This is a list of women chemists. It should include those who have been important to the development or practice of chemistry. Their research or application has made significant contributions in the area of basic or applied chemistry. Five women have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (listed above), awarded annually since 1901 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Marie Curie was the first woman to receive the prize in 1911, which was her second Nobel Prize (she also won the prize in physics in 1903, along with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel - making her
Marie Curie Jewish. During the French Academy of Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right-wing press as a foreigner and atheist. Her daughter later remarked on the French press' hypocrisy in portraying Curie as an unworthy foreigner when she was nominated for a French honor, but portraying her as a French heroine when she received foreign honors such as her Nobel Prizes. In 1911 it was revealed that in 1910-11 Curie had conducted an affair of about a year's duration with physicist Paul Langevin, a former student of Pierre Curie's, a married man who was estranged from his wife. This resulted