Stefania Maracineanu: Google pays tribute to Romanian physicist

Google on Saturday celebrated the 140th birth anniversary of Ștefania Mărăcineanu, one of the pioneering women in the discovery and research of radioactivity.

Mărăcineanu graduated with a physical and chemical science degree in 1910, and began her career as a teacher at the Central School for Girls in Bucharest

During this time, she earned a scholarship from the Romanian Ministry of Science and later decided to pursue graduate research at the Radium Institute in Paris.

At that time, the institute was becoming a centre for the study of radioactivity worldwide under the direction of physicist Marie Curie

Maracineanu began working on her PhD thesis on polonium the same element which was discovered by Curie.

To complete her PhD in physics, Mărăcineanu got into the Sorbonne University in Paris

After working for four years at the Astronomical Observatory in Meudon, she returned to Romania and founded her homeland’s first laboratory for the study of radioactivity.

she never received global recognition for the discovery.