Frédéric Joliot-Curie (1900-1958)
It is on the recommendation of Paul Langevin that Frédéric Joliot, a young chemist and physicist, joins the Radium Institute as Marie Curie’s special laboratory assistant. He will later become the Institute’s director. This is where he meets his future wife, Irène Curie, with whom he begins a collaboration on top of their own personal research. During the 1933 Conference on Physics, they present the results of their latest experiments that leave their colleagues more than doubtful. But some months later, the couple solves the mystery, realizing that they have produced artificial radioelements. This discovery earns them the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Frédéric Joliot-Curie also takes part in the 1947 Conference on Chemistry on isotopes.