Who was Marie Curie's husband and scientific partner?

Marie Curie’s husband and scientific partner was the French physicist Pierre Curie.

Marie and Pierre met in Paris in the 1890s after being introduced by a mutual acquaintance. They married in 1895 and formed an unusually close research partnership. Pierre brought expertise in magnetism, crystals, piezoelectricity, and precision instruments, while Marie’s investigations into uranium radiation led them toward the study of radioactivity.

Together they identified the elements polonium and radium in 1898. Their work built on Henri Becquerel’s discovery that uranium salts emit penetrating radiation. In 1903, Marie, Pierre, and Becquerel shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for research into these radiation phenomena. The award made Marie and Pierre the first married couple to win a Nobel Prize.

Pierre died in 1906 after being struck by a horse-drawn vehicle in Paris. Marie later succeeded him as a professor at the University of Paris, becoming the institution’s first woman professor. Frédéric Joliot was not her husband; he later married the Curies’ daughter, Irène.