Marie Curie and Mildred Dresselhaus, inspirations to women in science

The physics community lost the celebrated physicist Mildred Dresselhaus on February 20, 2017. Millie was originally scheduled to give this talk describing how fascination with Marie Curie’s biography propelled her into science at a young age. I will talk about the many parallels I see between the two pioneers: Marie Curie, born in 1867, who was an inspiration to a young Millie, and Millie, born in 1930, who was an inspiration to me, as well as many more women and men in science. I will also describe some of Millie’s research in condensed matter physics making use of radioactivity and the heritage of Marie Curie.