WASHINGTON – Senator Barbara Mikulski (Md.) will officially open an exhibit on Marie Sklodowska-Curie at the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda in Washington, DC at 4 p.m. on October 17, 2011.
The opening ceremony will include brief remarks by Senator Mikulski as well as Embassy of Poland Deputy Chief of Mission Maciej Pisarski and Dr. Bradley Miller, Director of the Office of International Affairs at the American Chemical Society. The exhibit will remain on display through October 21 in honor of National Chemistry Week.
The exhibit was brought to the Russell Rotunda by the Embassy of Poland under the patronage of the longest-serving female U.S. Senator, Barbara Mikulski – a proud Polish-American and inspiration to many women across the United States. It presents Marie Sklodowska-Curie as one of the most celebrated scientists of all time; a Polish and French patriot; wife to fellow Nobel laureate Pierre Curie; mother to yet another Nobel laureate, Irène Jolie-Curie.
The United Nations has declared 2011 the International Year of Chemistry, in part to mark the centennial anniversary of Sklodowska-Curie’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 2011 also marks the 90th anniversary of Sklodowska-Curie’s first U.S. visit in 1921, during which she met with President Warren G. Harding, who presented her with one gram of radium for her studies.
Displayed earlier this year at the European Parliament in Brussels under the auspices of Poland‘s presidency of the Council of the European Union, the exhibit was prepared by the Polish Academy of Sciences with the collaboration of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Museum in Warsaw.
The exhibit may be viewed October 17-21 in the Russell Senate Office Building Rotunda during office hours, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. The Russell Building is located at Constitution Avenue and 1st Street, NE in Washington, DC.
Embassy of Poland, Washington DC
Photo of the Week: Time for something from our archives, esp. since we’ll be celebrating this very famous female scientist next week in DC! We found this photo at the Library of Congress: Maria Sklodowska-Curie and U.S. President Warren Harding in front of the White House, May 20, 1921. The President has presented her with a gram of radium for her studies. At this point in her career, she’s already won TWO Nobel Prizes. (She remains one of two people in the entire world to have ever received the prize in two different fields.)
Sklodowska-Curie’s legacy is immense, and we salute her for continuously breaking scientific ground and barriers as a brilliant female scientist. She was also a proud Polish patriot; she named the new element she and her husband Pierre discovered in July 1898 “polonium” – after her homeland.
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