| 1 | Name: | Dr. Steven Chu | |
| Institution: | Stanford University | ||
| Year Elected: | 1998 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 106. Physics | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1948 | ||
Steve Chu became Berkeley Lab's sixth director on August 1, 2004 and served in that capacity through 2008, when he was named Secretary of Energy in the incoming Obama Administration. He was confirmed as Secretary on January 20, 2009 and returned to Stanford in 2013 as William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Physics, and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. A Nobel Prize-winning scholar and international expert in atomic physics, laser spectroscopy, biophysics and polymer physics, Dr. Chu oversaw the oldest and most varied of the Department of Energy's multi-program research laboratories, the Berkeley Lab. Berkeley Lad has an annual budget of over $600 million and a workforce of about 4,000. His distinguished career in laboratory research began as a postdoctoral fellow in physics at the University of California's Berkeley campus from 1976-78, during which time he also utilized the facilities of Berkeley Lab. His first career appointment was as a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. where, from 1978-87, his achievements with laser spectroscopy and quantum physics became widely recognized. During the last four years there, he was Head of the Quantum Electronics Research Department, during which time much of his groundbreaking work in cooling and trapping atoms by laser took place. That work eventually led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, an honor he shared with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji of France and United States colleague William D. Phillips. Their discoveries, focusing on the so-called "optical tweezers" laser trap, were instrumental in the study of fundamental phenomena and in measuring important physical quantities with unprecedented precision. At the time, Dr. Chu was the Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University, where he remained for 17 years as a highly decorated scientist, teacher and administrator. While at Stanford, he chaired the physics department from 1990-93 and from 1999-2001. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and l'Academica Sinica. He is also a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology. Dr. Chu has won dozens of awards in addition to the Nobel Prize, including the Science for Art Prize, the Herbert Broida Prize for Spectroscopy, the Richtmeyer Memorial Prize Lecturer, the King Faisal International Prize for Science, the Arthur Schawlow Prize for Laser Science, and the William Meggers Award for Laser Spectroscopy. He was a Humboldt Senior Scientist and a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2008 he delivered the Hans Bethe Lecture at Cornell University entitled "The World's Energy Problem and What We Can Do About It." Born in St. Louis and raised in New York, Dr. Chu earned an A.B. in mathematics and a B.S. in physics at the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in physics at UC Berkeley. He is author or co-author of more that 200 articles and professional papers, and over two dozen former members of his group are now professors at leading research universities around the world. | |||