Chu served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under the administration of PresidentBarack Obama from 2009 to 2013. At the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, Chu was a professor of physics andmolecular andcellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of theLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research[5][6][7] was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at thesingle molecule level.[8] Chu resigned as energy secretary on April 22, 2013.[9][10][11][12][13] He returned to Stanford as Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology.[citation needed]
After obtaining his doctorate, he remained at Berkeley as apostdoctoral researcher for two years before joiningBell Labs, where he and his several co-workers carried out his Nobel Prize-winninglaser cooling work. He left Bell Labs and became a professor of physics atStanford University in 1987,[4] serving as the chair of its physics department from 1990 to 1993 and from 1999 to 2001. At Stanford, Chu and three others initiated the Bio-X program, which focuses on interdisciplinary research in biology and medicine,[26] and played a key role in securing the funding for theKavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.[27] In August 2004, Chu was appointed as the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, aU.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory, and joined UC Berkeley's department of physics and department of molecular and cell biology.[28] Under Chu's leadership, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was a center of research intobiofuels andsolar energy.[14] He spearheaded the laboratory's Helios project, an initiative to develop methods of harnessing solar power as a source ofrenewable energy for transportation.[28]
Chu's early research focused onatomic physics by developinglaser cooling techniques and themagneto-optical trapping of atoms usinglasers. He and his co-workers at Bell Labs developed a way to cool atoms by employing six laser beams opposed in pairs and arranged in three directions at right angles to each other. Trapping atoms with this method allows scientists to study individual atoms with great accuracy. Additionally, the technique can be used to construct anatomic clock with great precision.[29]
Chu with his medal as a Pontifical Academician, 2018
Chu received an honorary doctorate fromBoston University when he was the keynote speaker at the 2007 commencement exercises.[39] He is a senior fellow of theDesign Futures Council.[40]Diablo Magazine awarded him an Eco Award in its April 2009 issue,[41] shortly after he was nominated for Energy Secretary.
Washington University in St. Louis andHarvard University awarded him honorary doctorates during their 2010 and 2009 commencement exercises, respectively.[42][43] He was awarded an honorary degree fromYale University during its 2010 commencement.[44] He was also awarded an honorary degree from thePolytechnic Institute of New York University, the same institution at which his father taught for several years, during its 2011 commencement.[45]Penn State University awarded him an honorary doctorate during their 2012 commencement exercises.[46] In 2014, Chu was awarded an honorary doctorate fromWilliams College, during which he gave a talk moderated by Williams College Professor Protik Majumder.[47] He was awarded an honorary doctorate fromDartmouth College during its 2015 commencement.[48] Chu was also awarded an honorary doctorate fromAmherst College in 2017, where he later gave a lecture titled "Climate Change and Needed Technical Solutions for a Sustainable Future" in March 2018.[49][50]
Steven Chu's development of methods to laser cool and trap atoms was recognized by the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. He also pioneered the development ofatom interferometry for precision measurement, and he introduced methods to visualize and manipulatesingle bio-molecules simultaneously withoptical tweezers. Throughout his career, he has sought new solutions to the energy and climate challenges. From January 2009 to April 2013, he was the 12th U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama, and initiated the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, the Energy Innovation Hubs, and theClean Energy Ministerial meetings.[52]
Chu's nomination to be Secretary of Energy was unanimously confirmed by theU.S. Senate on January 20, 2009.[53] On January 21, 2009, Chu was sworn in as Secretary of Energy in theBarack Obama administration. Chu is the first person appointed to the U.S. Cabinet after having won a Nobel Prize.[54] He is also the second Chinese American to be a member of the U.S.Cabinet, after formerSecretary of CommerceGary Locke.[55]
Chu's scientific work continued, however, and he even published a paper ongravitational redshift inNature in February 2010[57] and another one he co-authored in July 2010.[58][59]
In August 2011, Chu praised an advisory panel report on curbing the environmental risks ofnatural gas development. Chu responded to the panel's report onhydraulic fracturing, the controversial drilling method that is enabling a U.S. gas boom while bringing fears ofgroundwater contamination. The report called for better data collection of air and water data, as well as "rigorous"air pollution standards and mandatory disclosure of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process. Chu said that he would "be working closely with my colleagues in the Administration to review the recommendations and to chart a path for continued development of this vital energy resource in a safe manner".[61]
Chu faced controversy for a statement he made prior to being appointed, claiming in a September 2008 interview with the Wall Street Journal that "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."[62] However, in March 2012, he retracted this comment, saying "..since I walked in the door as Secretary of Energy I've been doing everything in my powers to do what we can to ... reduce those prices" and that he "no longer shares the view [that we need to figure out how to boost gasoline prices in America]".[63]
On February 1, 2013, Chu announced his intent to resign.[11][65] In his resignation announcement, he warned of therisks of climate change from continued reliance onfossil fuels, and wrote, "theStone Age did not end because we ran out of stones; we transitioned to better solutions".[66] He resigned on April 22, 2013.
Chu was instrumental in submitting a winning bid for theEnergy Biosciences Institute, aBP-funded $500 million multidisciplinary collaboration between UC Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab, and theUniversity of Illinois. This sparked controversy on the Berkeley campus, where some fear the alliance could harm the school's reputation for academic integrity.[71][72][73][74]
Based partially on his research at UC Berkeley, Chu has speculated that a global "glucose economy", a form of alow-carbon economy, could replace the current system. In the future, special varieties of high-glucose plants would be grown in thetropics, processed, and then the chemical would be shipped around likeoil is today to other countries.TheSt. Petersburg Times has stated that Chu's concept "shows vision on the scale needed to deal with global warming".[17]
Chu has also advocated making the roofs of buildings and the tops of roads around the world white or other light colors, which mayreflect sunlight back into space andmitigate global warming. The effect would be, according to Chu, similar to taking every car in the world off the roads for about 11 years.[17] Samuel Thernstrom, a resident fellow at theAmerican Enterprise Institute and co-director of itsGeoengineering Project, expressed support for the idea inThe American, praising Chu for "do[ing] the nation a service" with the concept.[75] Chu is on the board of directors ofXyleco, a company developing alternate energy.[76]
In 1997, he married Jean Fetter, a British-AmericanOxford-trained physicist.[19] He has two sons, Geoffrey and Michael, from a previous marriage to Lisa Chu-Thielbar.[4]
Chu is interested in sports such asbaseball,swimming, andcycling. He taught himselftennis—by reading a book—in the eighth grade and was a second-string substitute for the school team for three years. He also taught himself how topole vault using bamboo poles obtained from the localcarpet store.[4] Chu said he never learned to speakChinese because his parents always spoke to their children inEnglish.[19]
^Lewis, Joanna I. (2023).Cooperating for the Climate: Learning from International Partnerships in China's Clean Energy Sector. Cambridge, Massachusetts: TheMIT Press.ISBN978-0-262-54482-5.
^Müller, H.; Peters, A.; Chu, S. (2010). "A precision measurement of the gravitational redshift by the interference of matter waves".Nature.463 (7283):926–9.Bibcode:2010Natur.463..926M.doi:10.1038/nature08776.PMID20164925.S2CID4317164. According to Nature he worked on this "during nights, weekends and on planes – after putting in 70–80 hours a week as energy secretary"
