Frdric Joliotcurie

Vocation

Notable

French chemist. Frédéric Joliot-Curie and his wife Irène Joliot-Curie, daughter of Marie curie, researched production of energy from nuclear fission, and shared the 1935 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their production of synthesized radioactive elements. He was a leader with the French Resistance after the Nazi occupation of 1940, and cognizant of the dangers of nuclear chain reactions he and his wife ceased their nuclear research and had their papers sealed and smuggled to England until after the war. He was a co-founder of the French Atomic Energy Commission (FAEC) in 1946, and oversaw construction of France's first nuclear reactor on 15 December 1948. He served as the FAEC's High Commissioner until 1950, when he was forced out because of his peace and socialist activism, including his 1949 co-founding of the World Peace Council. In 1944 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences. He died on 14 August, 1958, as a result of complications of surgery. Link to Wikipedia biography