Langevin-Joliot comes from a family of well-known scientists. • Her maternal grandparents were
Marie and
Pierre Curie, famous for their study of
radioactivity, for which they won a
Nobel Prize in physics with
Henri Becquerel in 1903. Marie Curie was the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (
Linus Pauling was the second to do so); her second was awarded in
chemistry in (1911) for her discoveries of
radium and
polonium. • Her parents,
Frédéric Joliot-Curie (born Jean Frédéric Joliot) (who was mentored by Marie) and
Irène Joliot-Curie (born Irène Curie), won a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of
Induced radioactivity. • Her brother
Pierre Joliot is a noted biophysicist who has made contributions to the study of
photosynthesis. In response to her family's legacy, Langevin-Joliot regularly grants interviews and gives talks about their history. Her knowledge of her family's history led to her writing the introduction to ''Radiation and Modern Life: Fulfilling Marie Curie's Dream'', including a brief history of the Curies. Her husband, , was grandson of the famous physicist
Paul Langevin (who had a relationship with the widowed Marie Curie, Hélène's grandmother, in 1910) and was also a nuclear physicist at the institute; her son, Yves (b. 1951), is an astrophysicist. == Selected works ==