Marie Curie: the Curie Institute in Senegal to Nuclear Physics

Sub-Saharan Africa is not a place where one will look first when radioactivity or nuclear physics is mentioned. Conducting forefront research at the international stage at US national facilities such as the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia or the National Superconducting Cyclotron Facility/Facility for Rare Isotope Beams in Michigan does not point to Historically Black Colleges either. The two are actually intrinsically connected as my personal journey from my early exposure to radiation at the Curie Institute at the LeDantec Hospital in Senegal lead me to Hampton University. The former, through one of my uncles, catapulted me into a nuclear physics PhD while the latter houses the only nuclear physics program at an HBCU to date that has established itself as one of the premier programs in the nation. This talk will review the impact of Marie Curie in my life as a nuclear physicist.