Polish physicist and chemist Marie Curie (November 7, 1867 – July 4. 1934), born Maria Sklodowska, might have objected to such homages – for she famously cautioned that “in science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.” And yet it was the person behind the science – driven yet humble, passionate yet pragmatic – that made the mother of radioactivity not only the first woman to win a Nobel Prize but also the only person to date to win a Nobel in two different sciences, physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.

With her spirit of creative restlessness, Curie was never one to rest on her laurels, contributing one of history’s most aspirational definitions of science in stating, “One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.”

But immersed as she was in her scientific work, Curie was also a woman of uncommon romantic enchantment, with a vibrant love life that included falling in love with a future celebrity-mathematician, the son at the family where she worked as a governess, a bicycle honeymoon with her collaborator and husband, Pierre Curie, and a passionate love affair with physicist Paul Langevin after Pierre’s sudden death in a freak accident.

Still, Curie never compromised her scientific pursuits. Her 1937 biography, written by her daughter Eve, illustrates Curie’s dedication to lab work with a telling anecdote: When the elderly mother of Marie’s brother-in-law proposed to buy her a wedding dress for her marriage to Pierre in July 1895, Curie instructed:

I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.

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A doctor of animal science and expert on animal behavior, Temple Grandin (born January 29, 1947) has designed groundbreaking systems for humane livestock handling that have radically reduced the amount of pain, anxiety, and fear that cattle and pigs experience in the factory farming system. Autistic herself and one of the most vocal champions of classifying the autistic mind as “different, not less,” Grandin has created a therapeutic device known as a “hug machine,” designed for calming children on the autism spectrum through deep-pressure stimulation.

She describes herself as a visual thinker for whom words come as a second language and whose astounding visual memory and attention to detail have allowed her to design the very innovations for which she is so lauded. At the heart of both her animal welfare and neurodiversity advocacy lies a brave and indiscriminate celebration of the inner lives of creatures, whatever their biological category or neurological default.

The title of Grandin’s most recent book, Animals Make Us Human, which synthesizes more than thirty years of research and hands-on experience, concisely yet poetically captures the essence of her work: A profound respect for all living beings and tireless advocacy of mutual respect.

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She was once called “undoubtedly…the most beautiful woman on earth.” But Austrian-American Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr (November 9, 1913 – January 19, 2000) was also one of the most important mathematical minds of the 20th century.

In 1940, shortly after leaving her arms-dealer husband and escaping to Hollywood from Nazi Europe, Lamarr befriended composer George Antheil and his wife. With her knowledge of munitions and interest in mathematics, she came up with the idea for a radio that hopped frequencies, allowing for torpedoes to be controlled remotely without detection. Antheil envisioned a way to do this with a coded ribbon reminiscent of a player piano strip. The two spent a year in phone calls, napkin sketches, and prototypes scrapped together on Hedy’s living room floor, until they finally perfected the concept and filed a patent for a “secret communication system” in 1941.

Hedy was only 28.

Her frequency-hopping invention laid the foundation for wireless communication long before computers and provided the basis for modern-day technologies like WiFi and Bluetooth. Lamarr went on to make 18 films between 1940 and 1949, including Hollywood’s highest-grossing movie of 1949, in addition to mothering two children.

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