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Steven Chu

Distinguished Lecturer

Steven Chu
Steven Chu

William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Humanities and Sciences
Professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Physiology
Stanford University School of Medicine
Stanford University

Co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics and the first scientist to serve as a US Cabinet secretary, Steven Chu has advanced atomic physics by co-developing laser cooling techniques and the magneto-optical trapping of atoms. That approach allows scientists to study individual atoms with greater accuracy. 

Chu is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academia Sinica, and is a foreign member of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology.

Chu will hold the title of Hagler Institute Distinguished Lecturer and participate as a keynote speaker in a symposium with other notable scholars.