Steven Chu
Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been chosen by US president Barack H. Obama to be nominated the next US Secretary of Energy.
Chu received a PhD in physics in 1976 from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked at Bell Labs from 1978 to 1987, then became a professor in the physics department at Stanford University. He served as chair of that department from 1990–1993 and 1999–2001. He became director of the Lawrence Berkeley Lab in 2004.
Chu, received the American Physical Society (APS) Herbert P. Broida Prize in 1987 and the APS Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science in 1994. He received the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work on laser cooling and trapping of atoms.
Chu has been a strong supporter of renewable energy and an advocate of controls on greenhouse gas emissions to combat global warming. As director of Lawrence Berkeley Lab, he increased the lab’s focus on researching clean energy technology, including advanced biofuels and solar energy technology.