Early Life and Education
Lu was born in Cleveland, Ohio and grew up in the Philadelphia suburb of West Chester, Pennsylvania. His early childhood interest in rockhounding led to his winning national gold medals in the "Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils" event at four National Science Olympiad tournaments. Lu graduated from B. Reed Henderson high school in West Chester in 1996.
Lu matriculated at Princeton University in September, 1996, and was advised in his first year by geology professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes. He studied organic chemistry with Maitland Jones, Jr., with whom Lu published his first paper on his freshman summer research project about carbenes. As an undergraduate physics major, he wrote his fourth-year senior thesis with Prof. Paul J. Steinhardt on the search for natural quasicrystals, later published in Physical Review Letters. Lu graduated from Princeton summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with an A.B. in physics from Princeton in June, 2000. In September, 2000, he began his graduate studies at Harvard University, receiving an A. M. in physics in 2002. In 2005, Lu presented a set of lectures in Turkmenistan. Since 2007, Lu has served on the national advisory committee of the Science Olympiad. Lu completed his Ph.D. in physics in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Peter Lu
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Even today . . . experts, usually male, tell women how to be mothers and warn them that they should not have children if they have any intention of leaving their side in their early years. . . . Children don’t need parents’ full-time attendance or attention at any stage of their development. Many people will help take care of their needs, depending on who their parents are and how they chose to fulfill their roles.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.”
—Stephen Vizinczey (b. 1933)