Dr S T Lee Public Policy Lecture: Professor Steven Chu, Stanford University

Energy, Climate Change and Sustainability: a necessity as the mother of many inventions

Speaker: Professor Steven Chu, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University

Venue: Robinson College auditorium, Cambridge (see here for map and directions)

Date: 10 November 2014 (5:30pm - 6:45pm + drinks)

Professor Steven Chu, former Energy Secretary under President Obama, will deliver the 2014 S T Lee Lecture on 10 November in Cambridge.

You can read the news article about this lecture here.

Overview

Science and technology such as the industrial and agricultural revolutions have profoundly transformed the world. In his talk, Professor Chu will first discuss an “epidemiological” approach of assessing the risks of climate change, and then provide a perspective on how we can mitigate the risks with science, technology and policy, so that sustainable energy becomes the low cost option.

Steven Chu is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Humanities & Sciences and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University. From January 2009 until April, 2013, Professor Chu served as the 12th U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Barack Obama. During his tenure, the Department of Energy annual budget was approximately $26 Billion and was entrusted an additional $36 B through the Recovery Act.

As the longest serving Energy Secretary, he began several initiatives including ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy), the Energy Innovation Hubs, and the Clean Energy Ministerial meetings. During his time at the DOE, the deployment of renewable energy in the U.S. doubled. As the first scientist to head the DOE, Professor Chu helped identify and recruit a dozen outstanding scientists and engineers; he worked to create a “Bell Labs” culture in ARPA-E, which is now being disseminated in other parts of the Energy Department such as the solar photovoltaic program, “SunShot.”

S T Lee Lectures

The S T Lee Public Policy lectures were established in 2003 thanks to a benefaction from Seng Tee Lee, Singaporean business executive, philanthropist and Honarary Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. Each lecture considers aspects of scientific, medical or technological research and developments that are likely to have significant implications for public policy over the next decade.