Marie Sklodowska Curie was a French-Polish physicist and chemist who was a pioneer in research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, which she won for her research on radiation conducted with her husband Pierre Curie. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. Curie discovered the elements polonium and radium, and her work developing x-ray machines aided soldiers in World War I.