Sylvester James (Jim) Gates, Jr.

• Member, FRA Board of Directors for Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
• John S. Toll Professor of Physics, University of Maryland

Sylvester James (Jim) Gates, Jr. (born December 15, 1950) is a noted American theoretical physicist. He received BS and PhD degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the latter in 1977. His doctoral thesis was the first thesis at MIT to deal with supersymmetry. Gates is currently the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park and serves on President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He is known for his work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. In 1984, working with M. T. Grisaru, M. Rocek, W. Siegel, and Gates co-authored “Superspace, the first comprehensive book on the topic of supersymmetry”.

Gates has been featured extensively on many NOVA PBS programs on physics, most notably The Elegant Universe in 2003. In 2006, he completed a DVD series titled "Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality" for The Teaching Company composed of 24 half-hour lectures to make the complexities of unification theory comprehensible to laypeople. During the 2008 World Science Festival, Prof. Gates narrated a ballet "The Elegant Universe" where he gave a public presentation of the artist forms connected to his scientific research.

Sylvester James Gates, Jr.'s postgraduate studies began with his appointment as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows (1977-1980) and continued with an appointment at California Institute of Technology (1980-1982). He has been a faculty member at M.I.T. (1982-1984) and the University of Maryland at College Park (1984-present). From 1991-1993, Professor Gates took leave of absence from the University of Maryland to serve as Physics Professor and Departmental Chair at Howard University.

Professor Gates shares the N.T.A.'s 1993 Technical Achiever of the Year Award with astronaut Dr. Bernard Harris and also received the recipient of the N.T.A.'s 1993 Physicist of the Year Award. Professor Gates was chosen to be the first recipient of the American Physical Society (APS) Bouchet Award and became a Fellow of the APS in 1994. Sylvester James Gates was inaugurated as the first John S. Toll Professor in Physics. He is currently serving as the president of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP).