Abstract

Throughout human history, multiple industrial and agricultural revolutions have profoundly transformed the world. However, the unintended consequence of these revolutions is that the greenhouse gas emissions are changing Earth’s climate. Most of our energy sources and many of the materials we use are based on fossil-fuel. The challenges of how to provide clean energy, water, air, and food in a world of more than 8 billion people and likely to grow to 11 billion by 2100 are formidable. After a brief summary of our current trajectory, I will discuss the current progress, opportunities and challenges needed to achieve net-zero greenhouse emissions.

Biography

Steven Chu is professor of Physics, Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and Energy Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He received the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for laser cooling and trapping of atoms.

Other contributions include the first optical tweezers manipulation of biomolecules, precision atom interferometry based on optical pulses of light, and single molecule FRET of biomolecules tethered to surfaces.

He is now developing and applying new methods in molecular biology and medical imaging, materials science and batteries. Previously he was U.S. Secretary of Energy, where he began ARPA-E, the Energy Innovation Hubs, and was tasked by President Obama to help BP stop the Macondo Oil spill.

Previously, he was director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford, and helped initiate Bio-X, which linked the physical and biological sciences with engineering and medicine. Before Stanford, he was a department head at Bell Laboratories.

He was past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Senior Advisor to the Directors of the NIH and the NNSA. He received an A.B. degree in mathematics and a B.S. degree in physics from the University of Rochester, a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, has 35 honorary degrees, and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and eight foreign academies.

Recordings of Beckman-Brown lectures

Previous Beckman-Brown Lectures

2023

"General Anesthesia, Neuromodulation and Altered States of Arousal," Dr. Emery N. Brown. Brown is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT; the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School; and an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

2022

"From Seeing to Doing: Understanding and Interacting with the Real World," Fei-Fei Li, the Sequoia Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and Denning Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (Oct. 6, 2022).

2021

"Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society," Nicholas A. Christakis, the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University (Oct. 6, 2021).

2020

Unfortunately, the 2020 lecture was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

2019

"Cognitive Reserve: An Evolving Concept," Yaakov Stern, professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University (Oct. 3, 2019)

2018

"Predictions: Understanding Global Warming," Dr. Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (Oct. 15, 2018)

2017

"Surface Glycans as Cellular IDs," Dr. Laura Kiessling, Department of Chemistry, MIT (Nov. 3, 2017)

2016

"Enzymes by Evolution: Expanding the Scope of Biocatalysis," Dr. Frances Arnold, Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry and director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center at California Institute of Technology (Sept. 19, 2016)