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• Physicist and University of California, Berkeley professor Steven Chu was appointed as the Secretary of Energy by President Barack Obama.The senate confirmed Chu's appointment just hours after the Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009.FOX News: Senate Confirms Obama Cabinet Secretaries (January 20, 2009)

  On May 15, 2009, Chu announced he will provide $2.4 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand and accelerate the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The funding effort is part of the Obama Administration's continuing effort to develop technologies to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide.WVGazette: DOE's Chu Announces CCS Projects (May 15, 2009)

• Fast Facts

  1. Born: February 28, 1948, in St. Louis, Missouri
  2. Named Barack Obama's Secretary of Energy on December 15, 2008FOX News: Obama Announces Energy, Environmental Team (December 15, 2008)
  3. Alma mater: University of Rochester
  4. Awarded a doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley
  5. Awarded a Nobel Prize in 1997
  6. Taught at Stanford University
  7. Director of the Berkeley National Laboratory
  8. Brother is a professor of research of Biochemistry and Medicine at Stanford
  9. Spouse, Jean Chu, was a physics professor at San Jose State University

• Brush with Swine Flu

  White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announced on April 30, 2009, that a security staff member for Energy Secretary Chu had come down with flu-like symptoms after accompanying President Obama on his trip to Mexico in mid April. Three people in the family of the security staff member also fell ill and were tested for the swine flu virus on April 28. The staff member and family experienced minor flu-like symptoms but were not hospitalized and ultimately recovered. Gibbs was quick to assure the media that the staffer never closer than six feet to President Obama during the Mexico trip.Boston Globe: Advance Team Member... (April 30, 2009)

• Career

  Steven Chu is a physicist, University of California, Berkeley professor and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was nominated as the new Secretary of Energy by President Barack Obama on December 15, 2008.FOX News: Obama Announces Energy, Environmental Team (December 15, 2008) The senate confirmed Chu's appointment shortly after the Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009.FOX News: Senate Confirms Obama Cabinet Secretaries (January 20, 2009)

• Nobel Prize Winner

  Chu and his colleagues Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for developing a technique that could cool and trap atoms using laser light. The laser light acts as a viscous liquid—sometimes called "optical molasses"—that slows the atoms to a speed at which they can be observed and studied in detail.NobelPrize.org: Press Release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1997 (October 15, 1997)

• Energy Crisis

  In a February 2009 interview with The New York Times, Chu said that solving the world's energy and environmental crisis would take three Nobel award level advances in technology including in the fields of electric batteries, solar power and the development of new crops.The New York Times: Big Science Role Is Seen in Global Warming Cure

• Quotes

  "[Steven Chu is] uniquely suited to be our next secretary of energy."—Barack ObamaPolitical Ticker (CNN): Obama announces energy secretary pick (December 15, 2008)

  "I approached the bulk of my schoolwork as a chore rather than an intellectual adventure."—Steven ChuNobelPrize.org: Steven Chu - Autobiography

• Related Pages on Mahalo

  Clean Coal | University of California, Berkeley | Barack Obama | Stanford University | Nobel Prize | Stanford University | Jeanne Labrew | Carol Browner | Lisa Jackson | Arne Duncan | John Holdren | Jane Lubchenco

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