Irene Joliot-Curie, the oldest daughter of the Nobel Prize-winning
physicists Marie and Pierre Curie, was a French physicist known for her work
with radioactivity, especially the production of artificial radioactive
elements. Joliot-Curie and her
husband, Frederic, shared the 1935 Nobel Prize for chemistry.
Unlike other young girls of this time, Irene's interest was considered by her parents to be completely normal. It was expected that she should pursue an advanced degree in science. Irene attended the University of Paris, where she graduated with a doctorate in physics.
She served as her mother's assistant at the Radium Institute (now the Curie Institute), where she met Frederic Joliot. She later became a member of the French Atomic Energy Commission. Under the direction of this group, France put a nuclear reactor into operation in 1948.
In 1933, the Joliot-Curies determined the conditions under which positrons could
be emitted when high-energy radioactive particles passed through matter. In
1934, they demonstrated that the bombardment of boron by alpha particles created
a radioactive isotope of nitrogen. This discovery, which led to the production
of artificial radioactive elements, resulted in their being awarded the Nobel
Prize.
Like her mother, Irene died of leukaemia caused by years of radiation exposure,
at age 58.