Chu Ching-wu

Paul Chu

Professor Paul Chu (Ching-Wu Chu, 朱經武; pinyin: Zhū Jīngwǔ), native of Taishan, Guangdong but born in Hunan, China in 1941, received his Bachelor of Science degree from Cheng-Kung University in Taiwan in 1962. He earned his Master of Science degree from Fordham University, New York in 1965, and completed his PhD degree at the University of California at San Diego in 1968. All of his three degrees are in physics.

After two years' performing industrial research with Bell Laboratories at Murray Hill, New Jersey, Prof. Chu was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at Cleveland State University in 1970. He was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor and Professor of Physics in 1973 and 1975, respectively.

He took up an appointment as Professor of Physics at the University of Houston in 1979. After his historic discovery (with M.K. Wu) of superconductivity above 77 K in YBCO in 1987, he was appointed the Director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity. He has served as the T. L. L. Temple Chair of Science at the same university since 1987. He also has served as a consultant and visiting staff member at Bell Laboratories, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the Marshall Space Flight Center, Argonne National Laboratory, and DuPont at various time.

Prof. Chu has received numerous awards and honors for his outstanding work in superconductivity, including the US National Medal of Science and the International Prize for New Materials. He was an invited contributor to the White House National Millennium Time Capsule at the National Archives in 2000 and was selected the Best Researcher in the US by US News and World Report in 1990. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences (foreign member), Academia Sinica and the Third World Academy of Sciences. His research activities extend beyond superconductivity to magnetism and dielectrics.