Skip to content

Advisory Board Member

Dr. Steven Chu

Former Secretary of Energy and Nobel Prize Recipient


Dr. Steven Chu served as the Secretary of Energy from January 21, 2009, to April 22, 2013 where he was charged with helping implement President Obama’s ambitious agenda to invest in clean energy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, address the global climate crisis, and create millions of new jobs. As the first scientist to hold a Cabinet position and the longest serving Energy Secretary, he recruited outstanding scientists and engineers into the Department of Energy. Prior to his appointment as Secretary of Energy, Dr. Chu was the Director of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, where he led the lab in pursuit of alternative and renewable energy technologies.

Dr. Chu is the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1997) for his contributions to laser cooling and atom trapping and has received numerous other awards. He has devoted his recent scientific career to the search for new solutions to our energy and climate challenges. He also taught at the University of California as a Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology. Previously, he held positions at Stanford University and AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Dr. Chu is a member of numerous honorific societies including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Academia Sinica, the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology, and is an honorary member of the Institute of Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Lifetime Member of the Optical Society of America. He received an A.B. degree in mathematics, a B.S. degree in physics from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as 23 honorary degrees.