Stanford physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Chu has crossed the Bay to become director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Funded by the Department of Energy, the lab conducts unclassified research across a wide range of scientific disciplines, including fundamental studies of the universe, quantitative biology, nanoscience, new energy systems and environmental solutions. Chu, 56, earned his doctorate at Cal, worked at Bell Laboratories and joined the Stanford faculty in 1987. Ten years later he shared the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. At Berkeley Lab, he will oversee an operation with 4,000 employees and a budget of $521 million.
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