Steven Chu

Steven Chu,, born February 28th 1948 in St. Louis, Missouri, is an American experimental physicist. He is known for his research in laser cooling and trapping of atoms, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. His current research is concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level. He is currently Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Biology of University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As global warming warnings grow more dire, Chu is currently pushing his scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and industry to develop technologies to reverse climate change. Chief in Chu's campaign is an unprecedented research pact reached between UC Berkeley, oil industry giant BP, the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the University of Illinois.

Nearly $400 million in new lab space will expand energy-related molecular work centered at Lawrence Berkeley that involves a cast of partners around the world; a $160 million Energy Biosciences Institute to be built in three years and funded by BP will include Chu's separate solar energy program.

Education and career
Steven Chu received his bachelor’s degree in 1970 from the University of Rochester, and his doctorate degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1976. He remained at Berkeley as a Postdoc for two years before joining Bell Labs where he and his several co-workers carried out his Nobel-winning laser cooling work. None of his co-workers, however, were recognized with the Nobel Prize. He left Bell Labs and became a professor of Physics in Stanford University in 1987. Steven Chu has served as the chair of the Physics Department in Stanford University from 1990-1993 and 1999-2001. He was appointed as the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2004. Chu, with three other professors, was involved with the Bio-X program in Stanford that is intended to bring together scientists from physics, chemistry, biology and engineering background under one roof, the James H. Clark Center. He also played an important role for the funding of Kavli Institute at Stanford.

Research
Steven Chu’s early research focused on atomic physics by developing methods to cool and trap atoms using lasers. He expanded his research area to polymer physics and biophysics while he was at Stanford. His current research focuses on the study of biological molecules and systems at single molecular level. Many Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows from his group have become professors at research universities around the world.

Honors and awards
Steven Chu is a co-winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 “for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light”, shared with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Daniel Phillips. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Sinica. He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology.

Personal life
Besides his scientific career, he also developed serious interest in various sports, including baseball, swimming, and cycling. He is currently married to Jean Chu, an Oxford-trained physicist who was previously married to Alexander Fetter, another Stanford physicist. Jean and Steven married shortly after Steven Chu received the Nobel Prize.

Chu was the keynote speaker for Boston University's 134th commencement ceremony which took place on May 20, 2007.

Chu's younger brother, Morgan Chu, is the former Co-Managing Partner at Irell & Manella LLP, a law firm.

His older brother Gilbert Chu is a professor and researcher of Biochemistry and Medicine at Stanford University.