Marie Curie, a Polish-French physicist and chemist was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize and the only woman to receive two Nobel prizes. While studying uranium’s rays, she discovered new elements and named them polonium and radium. She also coined the term “radio-active” to describe them. In 1903, Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics for her research on radiation phenomena. She was also the first woman in France to attain a Ph.D. in Physics, and the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne. In 1911, she won a second Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of polonium and radium.

Source: Association for Women in Science