From “European Women in Chemistry“

It was clear from an early age that Irene was very intelligent and had exceptional mathematical talent. Her mother, Marie Curie, believed the education of her daughter was of upmost importance. After finishing primary school, Marie found no suitable high schools for her daughter so with the help of the prestigious scientific minds found within her circle, they established the “Cooperative,” an alternative school for Irene and a handful of other children. Marie taught physics, Paul Langevin taught mathematics and Jean Perrin taught chemistry. This arrangement lasted for two years until Irene left to attend College Sevigne, finishing just as World War I broke out across Europe.

Irene assisted her mother on the northern front managing mobile X-Ray machines and assisting medical teams.

She stayed closed to her mother, taking a position at the Radium Institute, literally following in her footsteps. It was here in 1924, that she met the PhD student Frederic Joliot would would become her husband.

Irene received her doctorate in 1925, already a celebrated scientist.

She began research with her husband in 1931, they studies the findings of Bothe and Becker who had described a new type of penetrating radiation called gamma rays. To conduct their research the Joliot-Curies used Polonium which emitted alpha rays which were used to bombard thin sheets of various materials. When the material contained hydrogen a new type of radiation was produced which they assumed were protons of hydrogen nuclei. Unfortunately they came to the wrong conclusion, it was James Chadwick who recognized the error and that the new form of radiation consisted of neutrons leading to the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Jolet-Curies received their own Nobel Prize that year in Chemistry in recognition of their synthesis of new radioactive elements considered artificial radioactivity. The discovery was significant in developing the process of generating radioactive isotopes. Prior to the discovery, it was assumed that radioactive decay only occurred through natural causes by the spontaneous decomposition of the nucleus. By bombarding boron and aluminum with alpha particles, they produced radioactive nitrogen and phosphorus.

The Radium Institute was primarily focused on chemistry while, at the time, similar physics based research was underway at the Cavendish Laboratory in the UK, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin and at Fermi’s laboratory in Italy.

In 1938, Irene had another miss with scientific greatness when the results of her work in collaboration with Pavle Savic incorrectly interpreted the results of their experimentation. They stated the observation of a new element, similar to Lanthanum after bombarding uranium with neutrons. It would later be found that it was not a new element, but they were observing the fission of uranium into two similar sized nuclei of known elements.

Irene and Frederic’s careers diverged at this point, Irene worked as a professor at the University of Paris and continued research at the Radium Institute. Fredrick taught at the College de France, starting his own laboratory and became a leader in nuclear physics.

Between 1951 and 1954 Irene applied to the French Academy of Sciences four times and was refused, also being rejected from the American Chemical Society.

Irene, like her mother, refused to readily acknowledge the hazards of radioactivity leading to acute leukemia.