Steven Chu | |
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![]() Official portrait, 2009 | |
12th United States Secretary of Energy | |
In office January 21, 2009 – April 22, 2013 | |
President | Barack Obama |
Deputy | Daniel Poneman |
Preceded by | Samuel Bodman |
Succeeded by | Ernest Moniz |
Personal details | |
Born | St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. | February 28, 1948
Political party | Democratic[1][2] |
Spouse(s) | Lisa Chu-Thielbar (divorced) Jean Fetter (m. 1997) |
Children | 2 |
Father | Ju-Chin Chu |
Relatives |
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Education | University of Rochester (BA, BS) University of California, Berkeley (MS, PhD) |
Occupation | Politician, writer |
Profession | Physicist |
Awards |
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Website | University website |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Atomic physics, biological physics, polymer physics |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Observation of the Forbidden Magnetic Dipole Transition 62P1/2→72P1/2 in Atomic Thallium (1976) |
Doctoral advisor | Eugene D. Commins |
Doctoral students | Michale Fee |
Chinese name | |
Chinese | 朱棣文 |
Hanyu Pinyin | Zhū Dìwén |
Steven Chu (born February 28, 1948)[3] is an American physicist. He was the 12th United States Secretary of Energy from 2009 to 2013. Chu is known for his research at Bell Labs in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, along with his scientific colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips.[3]
Chu is the first Nobel Prize winner and the second Chinese American to hold a post in the United States Cabinet.[4][5] Before becoming the United States Secretary of Energy, he was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was also the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[6]
Before teaching at Berkeley, he was a professor of physics at Stanford University. He has argued for more research into alternative energy and nuclear power. He thinks the world should shift away from fossil fuels to help with climate change.[7][8][9] For example, he discusses a global "glucose economy". This is a form of a low-carbon economy, in which glucose from tropical plants is shipped around like oil is today.[10]