Prof. Sylvester Gates

Prof. Sylvester James Gates Jr. served from 2009 to 2017 on the White House Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) under President Barack Obama. He is a recipient of the US Presidential Medal of Science and holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Science. During his decades with the UMD Department of Physics, he was named a Distinguished University Prof., University System of Maryland Regents Prof. and John S. Toll Prof.

of Physics at the University of Maryland. Known for his pioneering work in supersymmetry and supergravity, areas closely related to string theory, Gates was also an affiliate mathematics professor. Gates earned two Bachelor of Science degrees (in physics and mathematics) and his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1984, Gates co-authored Superspace: One Thousand and One Lessons in Supersymmetry, the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry, and joined the UMD faculty as an associate professor. Four years later, he became the first African American to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major U.S. research university.