The University Archives is pleased to announce the acquisition of a major addition to the Steven Chu papers. The materials, spanning Chu's career, consist of correspondence, research and subject files, teaching files, awards, and posters.

Chu, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997, earned his A.B. in mathematics (1970) and his B.S. in physics (1970) at the University of Rochester and his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, 1976. He was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories, 1978-1983, and then head of the Quantum Electronics Research Department, AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1983-1987. Chu joined the faculty at Stanford in 1987, was appointed Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor of Physics and Applied Physics in 1990, and served two terms as Chair of the Physics Department. He left Stanford in 2004 to become director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. On January 21, 2009, Chu was sworn in as Secretary of Energy in the Barack Obama administration. After serving four years as secretary of energy, Steven Chu returned to Stanford in May as professor of physics and molecular and cellular physiology.