Sylvester James Gates
Sylvester James Gates Jr. (born December 15, 1950), known as S. James Gates Jr. or Jim Gates, is an American theoretical physicist who works on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. He retired from the physics department at the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences in 2017, and he is now the Ford Foundation Professor of Physics at Brown University. He was a University of Maryland Regents Professor and served on former President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Gates received BS (1973) and PhD (1977) degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral thesis was the first at MIT on supersymmetry. With M. T. Grisaru, M. Rocek and W. Siegel, Gates coauthored Superspace, or One thousand and one lessons in supersymmetry (1984), the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry.
Gates is on the board of trustees of Society for Science & the Public and is active in scientific outreach.
Gates was a Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Scholar at MIT (2010–11) and was a Residential Scholar at MIT’s Simmons Hall. He is pursuing ongoing research into string theory, supersymmetry, and supergravity at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics. His research focuses on Adinkra symbols as representations of supersymmetric algebras.
On February 1, 2013, Gates was a recipient of the National Medal of Science. Gates was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2013.
Gates was nominated by the Department of Energy as one of the USA Science and Engineering Festival’s “Nifty Fifty” Speakers to present his work and career to middle and high school students in October 2010. On November 5, 2016, Gates spoke at the 2016 Quadrennial Physics Congress, the largest ever gathering of physics undergraduates.
Content: Wikipedia
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