• Stefania Maracineanu has been honoured with a Google doodle on her 140th birthday.
• She was a Romanian physicist and pioneer in the field of radioactivity.
• Studied at the Radium Institute in Paris and completed her PhD in two years.

Stefania Maracineanu, who was a Romanian physicist and a pioneering woman in the field of radioactivity discovery and research, has been honoured with a Google doodle on her 140th birthday.

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Stefania Maracineanu earned a physical and chemical science degree in 1910 and began her work as a teacher at Bucharest’s Central School for Girls, according to Google. During her time in Romania, she was awarded a scholarship from the Romanian Ministry of Science. She also chose to pursue graduate studies at the Radium Institute in Paris.

Under the guidance of physicist Marie Curie, the Radium Institute was swiftly becoming a worldwide centre for the study of radiation. Stefania began work on her PhD thesis on polonium, a chemical element discovered by Curie.

Maracineanu found that the half-life of polonium seems to depend on the type of metal it was placed on throughout her investigation. This led her to question if the polonium’s alpha particles had converted some of the metal’s atoms into radioactive isotopes. Her research resulted in what is believed to be the first instance of artificial radioactivity. She even enrolled at Paris’ Sorbonne University to complete her PhD in physics, which she completed in just two years!

Maracineanu devoted herself to artificial rain research, which included a journey to Algeria to test her findings. She also looked into the relationship between earthquakes and rainfall, and was the first to notice a large increase in radioactivity in the epicentre before an earthquake.

Maracineanu’s work was recognised by the Romanian Academy of Sciences in 1936, when she was elected as Director of Research, but she never received international recognition for her discovery.

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