Monday, December 15, 2008

Stephen Chu

President Elect Obama has nominated Stephen Chu to be his Secretary of Energy. Mr. Chu, 60, is best known for his 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for research in laser cooling and trapping of atoms. He is currently the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In addition to being a Nobel laureate physicist, Chu is also a Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. Mr. Chu is a Chinese America and was was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Chu earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976.


The Department of Energy's (DOE) mission is to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States; to promote scientific and technological innovation in support of that mission; and to ensure the environmental cleanup of the national nuclear weapons complex. DOE works to enhance national security through the military application of nuclear energy. DOE also maintains and enhances the safety, reliability, and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, including the ability to design, produce, and test, in order to meet national security requirements. It will also be interesting to see how Mr. Chu handles Yucca Mountain. [Wiki, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Autobiography]

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