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 was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level. Chu resigned as energy secretary on April 22, 2013. He returned to Stanford as Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology.
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. 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. On February 22, 2019, Chu began a one-year term as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Chu was born on 28 February 1948 in St. Louis, Missouri, with Chinese ancestry from Liuhe, Taicang, China, He attended Garden City High School in Garden City, New York. He received both a B.A. in mathematics and a B.S. in physics in 1970 from the University of Rochester, and earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, under Eugene D. Commins, in 1976, during which he was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Return to Steven Chu Autograph Profile