BASIC Board of Director Steven Chu Selected as U.S. Secretary of Energy

COUP FOR NATION, FOR REGION, FOR BASIC AND FOR THE BAY AREA COUNCIL

The scientific community has expressed impressive and enthusiastic support for the appointment of a highly-qualified and dedicated scientist from the Bay Area to lead the country’s response to the energy and climate change challenges. President-Elect Obama selected Steve Chu, Nobel prize winning physicist, Director of the region’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Board Director of the Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium (BASIC) for the key position of U.S. Secretary of Energy.

President-Elect Obama has targeted alternative energy and climate change as priority areas for his administration – areas in which Dr. Chu is recognized as a global leader.

Under Dr. Chu’s guidance, the Berkeley Lab and the Bay Area became notable as the center of research into biofuels and solar energy. Dr. Chu was a major contributor to the 2007 BASIC science futures report, “Innovative Energy Solutions from the San Francisco Bay Area: Fueling a Clean Energy Future.” In his letter within the report, Dr. Chu stated, “…among America’s most serious concerns are national security (intimately tied to our energy security), long-term economic competitiveness and the dangers of global warming. I believe that energy is at the center of all these concerns, and thus is the single most important problem that science and technology must solve in the coming decades…”

BASIC, an action-oriented collaboration of the region’s major research universities, national research laboratories, independent research institutions and research and development-driven businesses, is dedicated to advancing the Bay Area’s science, technology and innovation leadership.

BASIC is a program of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute within the Bay Area Council’s Foundation.