Love on the Brain

Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie (1867-1934) was a Polish-born physicist and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for her work on radioactivity. Curie holds a number of other accolades, such as being the first person and the only woman to win a Nobel Prize twice and the only scientist to win a Nobel in two different fields (chemistry and physics). She and her husband, Pierre Curie, were the first married couple to win a Nobel Prize—they were co-winners of Curie’s first Nobel, and together they won a total of five Nobel Prizes. Curie became the first woman hired as a professor at the University of Paris in 1906, and in 1920 she opened the Curie Institute in Paris for the study of radioactivity.

Curie’s life parallels Bee’s experiences in several ways. Bee is a ground-breaking scientist and one of the top researchers in her field, but the men around her—both superiors and subordinates—underestimate her abilities. Like Curie, Bee co-leads a research project with her significant other and needs him to intervene on her behalf so the men around her will take her seriously. At the same time, Bee fears that her colleagues’ knowledge of her relationship with Levi will be to her disadvantage, just as the French press blasted Curie for her relationship with a younger man.