Jean Fr矇d矇ric Joliot-Curie (March 19, 1900 - August 14, 1958) was a French physicist. In 1925 he became an assistant to Marie Curie, at the Radium Institute. He fell in love with her daughter Ir癡ne, and soon after their marriage (1926) they changed their surnames to Joliot-Curie. In 1934 they created radioactive nitrogen from boron and then radioactive isotopes of phosphorus from aluminum and silicon from magnesium. They were awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. In 1937 he left the Radium Institute to become a professor at the Coll癡ge de France working on chain reactions and the requirements for the construction of a nuclear reactor that used controlled nuclear fission to generate energy through the use of uranium and heavy water. In 1945, he became France's first High Commissioner for Atomic Energy. In 1948 he oversaw the construction of the first French atomic reactor. A devout communist, he was relieved of his duties in 1950 for political reasons. Both he and Ir癡ne died of conditions caused by their long exposure to radioactivity. Ir癡ne died in 1956 at the age of 58. He died in 1958 at the age of 58.