WASHINGTON (AP) — Energy Secretary Steven Chu will return to Stanford University after he steps down this year.

Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, will rejoin Stanford's faculty, where he taught physics and applied physics from 1987 to 2008. Upon his return, Chu will work jointly for the physics department and the medical school's Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology.

The exact date of Chu's departure from Energy has not been set. No successor has been nominated, although Ernest Moniz, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former top Energy Department official, is considered the leading candidate.

Chu told the Stanford Daily he was excited about his return. He said, "The highest point in my career was when I became a professor in (such) a great institution."