Marguerite Perey

Marguerite Catherine Perey (* October 19, 1909 in Villemomble, † May 13 1975 in Louveciennes ) was a French chemist and physicist.

Percy studied chemistry at the Ecole d' Enseignement Technique Feminine with a diploma degree in 1929. She worked from 1929 to 1946 at the Radium Institute in the period to 1934 as an assistant to Marie Curie. It was in 1946 received his doctorate at the Sorbonne. Subsequently, she was director of the Radium Institute three years before she was appointed in 1949 to the chair of Radiochemistry at the University of Strasbourg. Perey discovered in 1939, the last undiscovered at the time naturally occurring element francium as a short-lived radioactive decay product of actinium. A first remark here about contained her notebook. Two days later, on January 7, 1939 January 9, the French Academy of Sciences received a message about the discovery.

As the first woman she was admitted on 12 March 1962 in the Academy of Sciences, as a corresponding member.

In 1960 she became an officer of the Legion of Honor and received the Grand Prize of the city of Paris. In 1964 she was awarded the Lavoisier price of the Academie des Sciences and the Silver Medal of the French Chemical Society. In 1974 she became commander of the Ordre National du Mérite.