Marie Curie was a person.
Marie Skłodowska Curie ( [ ˈkjʊri , _ kjʊˈriː ] [ kyʁi ] ; [ kʲiˈri ] ; 7 November 18674 July 1934 ) , born Maria Salomea Skłodowska ( [ ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska ] ) , was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity . She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize , the first person and only woman to win twice , the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences , and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes . She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris , and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris . She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel . Under her direction , the world 's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms , using radioactive isotopes .