Which woman became the first Nobel Prize laureate in 1903?

Marie Curie became the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize when she won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. She shared the award with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel for research into radioactivity.

Curie was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw in 1867 and later worked in Paris. Her investigations helped establish radioactivity as a major field of scientific research. She and Pierre Curie also discovered the elements polonium and radium.

Curie remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields: Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. Her second award recognized her discovery of radium and polonium, the isolation of radium, and the study of its properties.

The 1903 prize was initially proposed only for male scientists, but Pierre Curie objected to Marie’s omission. She was subsequently included, making her the first female Nobel laureate and one of science’s most influential figures.