Distinguished Lecture: Steven Chu (Stanford) - The Challenges in Getting to Net-Zero Global Greenhouse Emissions
April 2, 2025
About Steven Chu: Stanford physicist Steven Chu is an acclaimed scholar, Noble laureate, and the first scientist to serve in a U.S. cabinet position. He won the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics for his work in laser cooling and trapping of atoms and was the 12th U.S. Secretary of Energy.
While leading the Department of Energy from 2009 to 2013, he established its Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) and the Energy Innovation Hubs. In 2010, former President Barack Obama personally tasked him with helping BP stop the Macondo oil spill. He served as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2004 to 2008 when he was also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. As a Stanford faculty member in 1988, he helped launch Bio-X, a program linking the physical and biological sciences with engineering and medicine. He has also held leadership positions at Bell Laboratories and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has advised the National Institutes of Health and National Nuclear Security Administration.
Chu has made groundbreaking contributions to understanding and manipulating tiny particles, driving solutions to some of the world’s most urgent challenges in healthcare, energy, and beyond. These innovations include the use of laser-based optical tweezers to manipulate biomolecules, precision atom interferometry with optical pulses of light, and single-molecule FRET of biomolecules tethered to surfaces. He is currently advancing new methods in molecular biology and medical imaging, materials science, and batteries.
He received a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and a Bachelor of Science in physics from the University of Rochester, and his PhD in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. He holds 35 honorary degrees and is a member of nine scholarly academies, including the National Academy of Sciences.