Innovation Trailblazer — Marie Curie

This is the ninth in a series of posts called “Innovation Trailblazers Revisited” that Matt Tomlinson and Crystal Collier are publishing in our Innovation Trailblazers series.

It takes Courage to Innovate

Often the answer to a trivia question “Who is the first person to win two Nobel Prizes?” or sometimes the question “Who is the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?” or “Who is the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice?” Maria Salomea Skłodowska, known to most as Marie Curie was an innovation trailblazer we can all admire.

When researching Marie Curie, I was struck by her tremendous tenacity, her perseverance against adversity, her unwillingness to compromise, or accept defeat. It’s possible that she was the most courageous person of her time.

Courage is a word that’s thrown around a lot, but it’s not as popular as it once was. Simply defined, courage is:

the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery

It’s easy to remember that Marie Curie discovered radioactivity and did a lot of important work with elements and X-Rays. What most people don’t know is all of the things she had the courage to face while accomplishing so much. This timeline of Curie’s life highlights some important yet perhaps unknown activities:

It’s fascinating to see the adversity and challenges she faced over her lifetime. I’ve bolded the key events, where she was denied an opportunity because she was an outspoken woman who challenged the status-quo. I’ve also highlighted (in blue) the areas where she displayed extraordinary courage to say ‘no’ to offers that many would have said ‘yes’ to.

Marie Curie will forever be known for her breakthrough research of radioactivity. Her honesty, integrity, and courage of her convictions was demonstrated by her actions. She gave away so much of her Nobel Prize money to friends, family, students, and research associates. She made the intentional decision not to patent the radium-isolation process to ensure the scientific process could continue.

The courage Marie Curie had was stronger than the radioactivity she was so passionate about.