Sylvester James “Jim” Gates, Jr. is a theoretical physicist at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. He is a John S. Toll Professor of Physics, and currently holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Science. He is a Distinguished University Professor and serves as a Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics, as well as a Professor of Public Policy in the School of Public Policy. Gates served on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, contemporaneously on the Maryland State Board of Education from 2009-2016, and on the National Commission on Forensic Science from 2013-2016.
He is known for his work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. He received two B.S. degrees and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his doctoral thesis was the institution’s first on the topic of supersymmetry. In 1984, Gates co-authored Superspace, the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry. He is a past president of the National Society of Black Physicists and an NSBP Fellow, as well as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute of Physics in the U.K. In August 2021 Prof. Gates was the recipient of the 2021 Andrew Gemant Award. In March 2020, Prof. Gates was elected to the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI)/Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath) Board of Trustees. He was elected as a Fellow of the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) beginning in May 2021. In 2019, he was elected to the presidential line of the APS where he is currently serving as Past President. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. In 2013, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, becoming the first African-American theoretical physicist so recognized in its 150-year history. President Obama awarded Prof. Gates the National Medal of Science at a White House ceremony in 2013.
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