Sylvester James Gates Jr. Featured Symposium Keynote Speaker March 31

Address officially Kicks off 36th Annual University-Wide Research Symposium

Dr. Sylvester James Gates Jr.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (TSU News Service) – The John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland – College Park, Dr. Sylvester James Gates Jr., will be the featured keynote speaker officially opening the University-Wide Research Symposium Monday, March 31 beginning at 2 p.m. The keynote address is free and open to the public, and will take place in the E.T. Goins Recital Hall, located in the Performing Arts Center on the main campus.

Every year, the Research Symposium serves as a foundation to provide students with authentic experiences in presenting their research before advancing to regional, national and international research symposia; and prior to professional careers. Now in its 36th year, the symposium will take place at the University March 31-April 4.

Sylvester James Gates Jr. Ph.D. is an American theoretical physicist. He is currently a University System Regents Professor, the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland – College Park, and the Center for String and Particle Theory Director. He serves on President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Maryland State Board of Education.

Gates received the B.S. degree in Physics (1973), the B.S. degree in Mathematics (1973), and Ph.D. in Physics (1977), all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His doctoral thesis was the first thesis at MIT to investigate supersymmetry.

He is nationally and internationally known for his research on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. In 1984, working with M.T. Grisaru, M. Rocek, W. Siegel, Gates co-authored Superspace, the first comprehensive book on the topic of supersymmetry. He is a former member of the board of trustees of the Society for Science and the Public.

NOVA PBS has featured Gates extensively on programs on physics, notably “The Elegant Universe” in 2003, and ‘‘The Fabric of the Cosmos’’ in 2011. In 2006, Gates 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 non-physicists.

In 2012, Gates was named a University System of Maryland Regents Professor, only the sixth person to be so recognized since 1992. He is past president of the National Society of Black Physicists, and is a 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. He also is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

He was recently elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the first African American so recognized in their 150-year history. Professor Gates was awarded the Medal of Science presented by President Obama, the highest award given to scientists in the U.S., at a White House ceremony in 2013. In November of 2013, he was awarded the Mendel Medal by Villanova University for “having demonstrated, by his life and his standing before the world as a scientist, that there is no intrinsic conflict between science and religion.”

Dr. Gates currently continues his research in supersymmetry in systems of particles, fields, and strings. This month, Gates will be honored as the Harvard University 2014 Scientist of the Year.

For more information on the Research Symposium, visit http://www.tnstate.edu/research/or contact Nannette Carter Martin, co-chair at 615.963.5827, or Tamara Rogers, co-chair at 615.963.1520.

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