Steven Chu
American physicist and former U.S. Secretary of Energy (born 1948) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Steven Chu[3] FREng ForMemRS HonFInstP (born February 28, 1948)[4] is an American physicist and former government official. He is a Nobel laureate and was the 12th U.S. secretary of energy. He is currently the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. He is known for his research at the University of California, Berkeley, and his research at Bell Laboratories and Stanford University regarding the cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, for which he shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips.[5][ambiguous]
Steven Chu | |
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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 | (1948-02-28) February 28, 1948 (age 76) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic[1][2] |
Spouse(s) | Lisa Chu-Thielbar (divorced) Jean Fetter (m. 1997) |
Children | 2 |
Parent |
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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 |
Chu served as U.S. Secretary of Energy under the administration of President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. At the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, Chu was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research[6][7][8] was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level.[9] Chu resigned as energy secretary on April 22, 2013.[10][11][12][13][14] He returned to Stanford as Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology.[citation needed]
Chu is a vocal advocate for more research into renewable energy and nuclear power, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combating climate change.[15][16][17] He has conceived of a global "glucose economy", a form of a low-carbon economy, in which glucose from tropical plants is shipped around like oil is today.[18] On February 22, 2019, Chu began a one-year term as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[19]