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Biography
Hélène Langevin-Joliot (born 19 September 1927) is a French nuclear physicist. She was educated at the IN2P3 (English: Institute of Nuclear Physics and Particles) at Orsay, a laboratory which was set up by her parents Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curie. She is a member of the French government's advisory committee. Currently, she is a professor of nuclear physics at the Institute of Nuclear Physics at the University of Paris and a Director of Research at the CNRS. She is also known for her work in actively encouraging women to pursue careers in scientific fields. She is Chairperson of the panel that awards the Marie Curie Excellence award, a prize given to outstanding European researchers. She was President of the French Rationalist Union from 2004 to 2012.
Family
Langevin-Joliot comes from a family of well-known scientists.
- Her maternal grandparents were Marie and Pierre Curie, famous for their study of radioactivity, for which they won a Nobel Prize in physics with Henri Becquerel in 1903. (Marie Curie was also the first person to win a Nobel Prize in two sciences, the second being for chemistry (1911) with her discovery of radium and polonium.)
- Her parents, Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (born Jean Frédéric Joliot) (who was mentored by Marie) and Irène Joliot-Curie (born Irène Curie), won a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of artificial radioactivity.
- Her brother Pierre Joliot is a noted biophysicist who has made contributions to the study of photosynthesis.
In response to her family's legacy, Langevin-Joliot regularly grants interviews and gives talks about their history. Her knowledge of her family's history led to her writing the introduction to Radiation and Modern Life: Fulfilling Marie Curie's Dream, including a brief history of the Curies.
Her husband, Michel Langevin, was grandson of the famous physicist Paul Langevin (who had an affair with the widowed Marie Curie, Hélène's grandmother, in 1910) and was also a nuclear physicist at the Institute; her son, Yves (b. 1951), is an astrophysicist.