You've probably heard of Marie Curie, the brilliant chemist who pretty much founded modern physics--but not her Nobel-Prize-winning daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, overshadowed not just by her mom but by her male peers and the career of her own husband.

When the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Irene and her husband, Frederic Joliot, for their work on artificially radioactive elements, Irene was portrayed in the press as Frederic's assistant, while in fact she was his full partner.

Their research revolutionized medicine, and Irene herself came close to discovering the process of fission, competing with eminent nuclear physicists of her day, including Ernest Rutherford, Lise Meitner and Niels Bohr.

Meanwhile, she directed the Radium Institute that her mother had founded, was Undersecretary of State for Scientific Research, worked with several women's rights organizations and battled tuberculosis for 20 years.

Unfortunately, like her mother, Irene was ultimately denied membership in the then all-male French Academy of Science. Frederic Joliot was admitted in 1943. --faiza.