Marie Curie was a chemist and physicist and a is my Hero! Albert Einstein reportedly remarked that she was probably the only person who could not be corrupted by fame. And rightly so, during her lifetime Marie received many monetary gifts and awards and insisted that these gifts be given to the scientific institutions she was affiliated with rather than to her.
Marie was known mostly for her pioneering research in radioactivity. Originally, Pierre Curie (husband) with colleague Henri Becquerel were nominated to receive the Physics 1903 Nobel Prize albeit the fact that all three worked on the research. After Pierre appealed and the board’s deliberation – all three received the ever deserved award making Marie the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. Her success did not stop, as she was the first person to win two different sciences categories – her 1903 Physics and 1911 Chemistry.
It didn't stop there, Marie’s work extended into World War I, where she became the director of the Red Cross Radiology Service. Here she set up France's first military radiology centre with inventions of her own designs and, for the benefit of the scientific community, Marie Curie intentionally refrained from patenting the radium-isolation process so that the scientific community could further their research unhindered.