A Chinese-American experimentalist in solid-state physics, Paul Ching-Wu Chu's (born 1941) leadership in superconductivity research in 1986-1987 led to revolutionary advances worldwide in materials that carry electric current without resistance at high temperatures.

Paul Ching-Wu Chu was born in China's Hunan Province on December 2, 1941. In 1949 he was taken to Taiwan where he grew up and received his formative education. Both his family and his country were supportive of his youthful interests in radios, electronics, and transistors. By the time he finished high school in Taichung, central Taiwan, he knew enough of the physical sciences to want to become an experimental physicist.

Chu attended Cheng-Kung University from 1958 to 1962, where he obtained his B.S. degree. After a year's service as an officer in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force, he migrated to the United States, where he earned his Master's degree in physics at Fordham University in the Bronx (1965). Then he...