Skłodowska Curie’s life story seems more compelling than ever. She faced the problems that scientists experience today: shortage of funding, inadequate laboratory facilities and having to manage a teaching load with research time. Add to that two daughters, and the issue of juggling childcare and career adds a familiar refrain. But she was also an immigrant. In her native country of Poland, women could not go to university, so she went to France for her higher education. She could not go until she had raised sufficient money to pay her tuition fees, so she worked as a governess for two years, finally leaving for France in 1891.