In 1906, Marie Curie became the first woman professor at which university?

In 1906, Marie Curie became the first woman professor at the University of Paris, historically associated with the Sorbonne. She took over her late husband Pierre Curie’s teaching position in general physics after his sudden death in April 1906.

Curie’s first lecture at the Sorbonne, on 5 November 1906, attracted intense public and press attention. She continued the research into radioactivity that had already earned her the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel.

The date can cause confusion because Curie’s initial appointment and her later status as a full professor are sometimes described separately. She began teaching in 1906 and was appointed to a full professorship in 1908, but the university was the same: the University of Paris.

Her career there followed remarkable earlier achievements. She had studied physics and mathematics in Paris, helped isolate polonium and radium, and later won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She remains the first person—and still the only woman—to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields.