A Woman from Odessa Who Became Marie Curie's Right-Hand Woman

Intent continuesits series of articles about outstanding women and men from Odesa. This time, the article will be dedicated to Kateryna Shamyé.

Women aren’t capable of anything serious. Dancing, singing—by all means. But not science. This stereotype persists in some quarters even in the 21st century. And the 19th century was a whole different story. And while it was still possible for women to find fulfillment in fields like theater or music, science required a serious education—one that women simply weren’t allowed to receive. Kateryna Shamyé, a native of Odesa, proved that anything is possible. And even more. 

The Girl Who Refused to Accept the Role Assigned to Her

She was born on November 3, 1888, to Antoine Shamié, a Syrian from Lebanon who had fled his homeland due to religious persecution. Her father worked as a notary. Her mother, Olena Golovkina, was a co-owner of a soap factory in Peresyp.

Clearly, the family had the means to provide their daughter with a good education. But in those days, women’s access to higher education was limited, and for some fields of study, it was completely off-limits. The best a young woman could hope for was a career as a rural schoolteacher with a salary of 10 rubles a year. But Kateryna wanted to pursue serious science, so she went to study at the University of Geneva. 

In 1913, Kateryna earned a doctorate in electrophysics and returned to Odesa. For an entire year, she researched voltage in gas-discharge tubes at the physics laboratory at Petrograd University. 

Her studies and career plans were interrupted by World War I. For the next two years, Kateryna Shamyé worked as a nurse at the Odessa University clinic.

After the war, she worked as an assistant to Professor Tymchenko, a mathematics professor. She participated in the activities of the university’s Mathematical Society and wrote a dissertation on the methodology of science. 

But major historical events drastically altered the course of her life, and Kateryna’s family (her father had already passed away by then and was buried in Odesa) ended up in a refugee camp in Switzerland. In the turmoil of these events, all of Kateryna Shamyé’s scientific notes were lost in Odesa, a city to which she was never destined to return. 

Five months in a refugee camp and no hope of returning to her scientific work. Kateryna decided to go to Paris.

The Letter That Changed Her Life

In 1919, a young woman with no money and no connections found herself in the world capital of science. In addition to her work, she sought out courses to explore a field that was just emerging at the time. And this field was dominated by a woman—Maria Skłodowska-Curie. As early as 1896, she discovered an element that would later be named in honor of her occupied homeland—“polonium.” Then came radium and research into radioactivity. Together with her husband, Pierre Curie, Marie conducted experiments that were hazardous to their health. And in the end, she won the Nobel Prize twice. In total, the Curie family received three Nobel Prizes. 

Kateryna Shamyé enrolled in courses on radioactivity at the Collège de France and, at the same time, taught at a private school for the children of her former compatriots. 

She managed not only to spark her students’ interest in science but also to help them find their own calling. Bianca Chubar, a chemist of Ukrainian descent, noted that it was Kateryna Chamier’s lessons that helped her choose her career path. However, her discoveries in the field of organic chemistry were often credited to her male colleagues, who took credit for them as their own.

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Bianca Chubar. PHOTO: tse1.mm.bing.net

Kateryna devoted herself entirely to teaching and selflessly supported her students. Her contemporaries said that she allowed herself to “rest” only at the end of the school year. 

But teaching at a school was not what the young scientist had dreamed of. In 1921, Kateryna Shamyé wrote a desperate letter to Marie Curie, asking for any job in her laboratory. 

The letter concluded with these words: “I am finishing my resume, which shows that for the past seven years I have had no opportunity to work in my field—physics—and that I have lost my laboratory skills. Another seven years of this life, and I will lose the moral right to call myself a doctor of science. For this reason, I want to devote my free hours each week to research work in your laboratory.”

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Marie and Irène Curie in the laboratory at the Radium Institute. PHOTO: lamethodecurie.fr

The great scientist, who knew well how to overcome resistance in a male-dominated world—and how to survive without a homeland or family—probably saw herself in the young woman. And she gave her a chance. 

Starting on April 15, 1921, Catherine Chamier began a career that would last for nearly thirty years. The researcher literally became the right-hand woman first to Marie Curie, and then to her daughter Irène, who carried on her mother’s work after her death. Marie Curie spoke of her colleague as follows: “From the very beginning, she [Chamier] struck me as a serious person, devoted to her scientific work.” 

Marie Curie was unable to offer her female colleagues a decent salary, but she did everything she could to support them financially. 

In particular, the scientist wrote to the dean of the Faculty of Sciences at the Sorbonne requesting that Catherine Chamier be awarded a scholarship.

Thirty Years Working with Radioactivity

For Catherine Chamier, the laboratory was more than just a job. It was a dedication to science. This is illustrated by the following episode. During the Nazi occupation, when no one else remained in the laboratory, Catherine Chamier continued to work intently, oblivious to the shocked representatives of the new regime who had come to visit.

After the war, Katerina served as an assistant to other researchers while also conducting her own experiments. Many scientists who used the Curie family’s laboratory for their research noted the indispensable role played by Katerina Chamier in particular.

For example, in a 1924 letter to his daughter, Academician Vernadsky wrote: “This morning I was unable to work at the Curie Institute because Chamier, who assists me, fell ill. I’m beginning to see some new and interesting results there.”

In addition to her scientific work, the Odessa native was responsible for classifying radioactive materials and overseeing measurements at the Radium Institute.

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The Radium Institute in Paris. PHOTO: lamethodecurie.fr 

It was Kateryna Chamier who, for nearly thirty years, would make her rounds through all the Institute’s laboratories at the end of each workday and collect all the samples of radioactive substances on her tray for storage. And in the morning, thanks to her, they would reappear on the tables of the research laboratories.

This inevitably took a toll on the researcher’s health; she died in 1950 from excessive radiation exposure. 

Kateryna Shamyé never started a family, but she left behind a substantial scientific legacy—more than four dozen professional articles and several scientific papers. In 1937, she published a work outlining her views on personality and the learning process. And in 1950, she published a work on the psychology of knowledge, which explored the characteristics of knowledge acquisition at the secondary and higher levels of education.

A Forgotten Legacy

Kateryna Shamié never won a Nobel Prize, never became the subject of scandalous tabloid articles, and never married. She became the tip of the iceberg—the part hidden beneath the water that supports the entire structure.

Dozens of scientific papers, lectures at advanced academic courses in Paris. Chemists around the world are familiar with the so-called “Chamie effect.” A fund for young scientists—the Bourse Catherine Chamie—was established in her honor for students from Lebanon.

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The grave of Catherine Chamie’s father. PHOTO: Violetta Diduk

In Odesa, the researcher’s name appears neither in place names nor on a memorial plaque. Her family name is mentioned only in pre-revolutionary address directories and at the Second Cemetery, where her father’s grave remains.
 
 

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