Chu selected at Energy Secretary

President-elect Barack Obama announced Dec. 15 his choice of Dr. Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy.

Secretary of Energy-designate Chu is director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Winner of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997, Chu served on the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs from 1978 to 1987, and was a professor in the Physics and Applied Physics departments at Stanford University from 1987 to 2004.

“Dr. Steven Chu is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who has been working at the cutting edge of our nation’s effort to develop new and cleaner forms of energy,” said Obama. “His appointment should send a signal to all that my Administration will value science, we will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action.”

A strong advocate of alternative and renewable energy research, Chu was one of three scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997 for work in cooling and trapping atoms with laser light. He will also be the first Asian-American to lead the department.

For more information, see the Straits Times article, or visit Obama’s transition site at Change.gov

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