Obama's choice for Energy Secretary, Steven Chu

Mercury News reports

He won the Nobel Prize in physics, rose to leadership posts at Stanford and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and was tapped Monday as President-elect Obama's Energy Secretary, but Steven Chu long considered himself the "academic black sheep'' of his family.

The son of Chinese immigrants recalls spending his lunch money to build homemade rockets and fashioning a pole vault out of bamboo from the carpet store. But growing up on Long Island he thought he could never match his siblings' Ivy League academic achievements.

Yet, there he was Monday, being lauded as a visionary leader who will push America's energy policy into a new era, promoting groundbreaking research into new clean technologies.

"His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science,'' President-elect Barack Obama said at a news conference. "We will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that facts demand bold action."

Here is an interview with Chu: