The preeminent science writer discusses the untold story of Marie Curie’s other legacy—the dozens of young women who trained under her and launched stellar scientific careers of their own.

In-person registration for this event has sold out, but livestream tickets are still available. A limited number of standby tickets may be available on the night of the event.

Nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name. She is the first Nobel laureate to be decorated in two separate fields—physics in 1903 with her husband, Pierre, and chemistry by herself in 1911. In her new biography, The Elements of Marie Curie, Dava Sobel focuses not just on Curie’s legendary genius, but on the 45 women who worked in her lab—from Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium, to Curie’s elder daughter, Irène, winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Sobel chronicles Curie’s remarkable life of discovery alongside the lives of the women who followed down the trail she blazed.

Sobel discusses her new book with science journalist Angela Saini.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Dava Sobel is the author of the international bestseller Longitude, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist Galileo’s Daughter, The Planets, A More Perfect Heaven, And the Sun Stood Still, and The Glass Universe, and co-author of The Illustrated Longitude. She is the recipient of the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board, the Bradford Washburn Award, the Kumpke-Roberts Award from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. A former New York Times science reporter, and currently editor of the “Meter” poetry column in Scientific American, she lives on Long Island.

Angela Saini is a science journalist and the author of four books. She teaches science writing at MIT and is a Moynihan Public Scholar at the City College of New York. Her work appears regularly in National Geographic, The Guardian, and Foreign Policy. Her 2019 book Superior: The Return of Race Science was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and her latest, The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule, was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

READ THE BOOK:

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog


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ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs. 

Livestream | Captions and a transcript will be provided. Media used over the course of the conversation will be accompanied by alt text and/or audio description. You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

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Dava Sobel © Glen Allsop for Hodinkee
Courtesy Angela Saini