S. James Gates Jr.

He was born on December 15, 1950, in Tampa, Florida; his father served in the U.S. Army, and after many moves the family settled in Parramore, an African American neighborhood of Orlando, where he graduated as valedictorian of Jones High School in 1969.⁠[1]

He recalls that a high school experiment with a ball rolling down an inclined plane brought the formula linking distance, rate and time to life and hooked him on physics.⁠[2]

In 1973 he received bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.⁠[3]

By his own account, he taught mathematics and physics in MIT’s Project Interphase for 12 straight summers between 1972 and 1985, which he regards as the first step of his university teaching career.⁠[4]

In 1977 he received a PhD in physics from MIT with the thesis Symmetry principles in selected problems of field theory, advised by James E. Young.⁠[5]

It was the first MIT PhD on supersymmetry.⁠[2]

He then worked closely with Warren Siegel as a Junior Fellow at HarvardHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry, held a postdoctoral position at Caltech, joined the MIT faculty and later left MIT for the University of Maryland.⁠[6]

From 1984 to 2017 he was a member of the University of Maryland physics faculty.⁠[7]

From 1991 to 1993 he chaired the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Howard University and was founding director of the NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. federal agency responsible for the civilian space program, aeronautics research and space science. Established by law in 1958 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has run programs including Mercury, the Apollo Moon landings, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station and Artemis.Open the full entry-funded Center for the Study of Terrestrial and Extraterrestrial Atmospheres (CSTEA); his tenure launched the efforts behind MHATTCAT, a team that began synchrotron research at the Advanced Photon Source in 1994.⁠[8]

In 1994 he received the American Physical Society’s Edward A. Bouchet Award for his contributions to theoretical high-energy physics, his internationally recognized research on superstrings and supersymmetry, his skill in communicating frontier particle physics to the public and his work to attract and retain minorities in science.⁠[9]

He was the award’s first recipient and served as an APS General Councilor from 1997 to 2001.⁠[3]

In 1998 he was named John S. Toll Professor of Physics, becoming the first African American physicist to hold an endowed chair at a major U.S. research university.⁠[1]

On August 27, 2001, he and M. T. Grisaru, M. Roček and W. Siegel posted their 1983 book Superspace, or One thousand and one lessons in supersymmetry free on arXiv with corrections; it runs to 568 pages.⁠[10]

In August 2004 he and Michael Faux published Adinkras: A Graphical Technology for Supersymmetric Representation Theory, introducing graphical objects called adinkra symbols to organize the representation theory of one-dimensional superalgebras and give geometric form to the mathematical basis of supersymmetry.⁠[11]

In 2006 he completed the DVD series Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality for The Teaching Company, 24 half-hour lectures making unification theory accessible to non-physicists.⁠[3]

On April 27, 2009, the White House announced the members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), including him as John S. Toll Professor of Physics and director of the Center for String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland.⁠[12]

From 2009 he also served on the Maryland State Board of Education, using both appointments to advocate STEM education.⁠[13]

In September 2010 MIT named him Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor in Physics for 2010–2011 at its Center for Theoretical Physics; he had earlier directed MIT’s Office of Minority Education.⁠[2]

In 2011 he became a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, making regular extended research visits there.⁠[14]

In 2013 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the first African American theoretical physicist so recognized in its 150-year history.⁠[15]

On February 1, 2013, President Barack Obama presented him with the National Medal of Science at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, the highest honor the U.S. government bestows on scientists, engineers and inventors.⁠[13]

Around then he was also named a University System of Maryland Regents Professor.⁠[16]

In May 2017, after 33 years on the University of Maryland faculty, he joined Brown UniversityBrown UniversityBrown University is a private nonprofit research university in Providence, Rhode Island, and a member of the Ivy League. Chartered by Rhode Island's colonial legislature in 1764, it is known for its undergraduate Open Curriculum, which has no common required core. Christina H. Paxson, president since July 2012, announced on August 3, 2026, that the 2026–27 academic year would be her last in office. As of October 1, 2026, the search for Brown's 20th president remained underway.Open the full entry as Ford Foundation Professor of Physics.⁠[17]

In August 2018 he was elected to the American Physical Society’s presidential line, to serve as vice president in 2019, president-elect in 2020 and president in 2021; he said the science community must not let the chasms between parts of the public and science go unchallenged.⁠[17]

On September 24, 2019, PublicAffairs published Proving Einstein Right: The Daring Expeditions that Changed How We Look at the Universe, which he co-wrote with Cathie Pelletier; it runs to 368 pages.⁠[18]

The book tells of astronomers who traveled the world between 1900 and 1922 to test general relativity, efforts that made Einstein a global celebrity.⁠[19]

That month, as director of the Brown Theoretical Physics Center and affiliate professor of mathematics, he became a faculty fellow of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs; he recalled falling in love with science at age 4 after seeing the science-fiction film Space Ways.⁠[20]

He appeared on episode 60 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast; topics included supersymmetry, adinkra symbols, string theory, experimental tests of general relativity, Richard FeynmanRichard FeynmanRichard Feynman (Richard Phillips Feynman, 1918–1988) was an American theoretical physicist who rebuilt quantum electrodynamics with the path-integral formulation and Feynman diagrams, for which he shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. He took part in the Manhattan Project during World War II and then taught for decades at the California Institute of Technology, where his introductory physics course became The Feynman Lectures on Physics; in 1986, as a member of the presidential commission investigating the space shuttle Challenger accident, he used ice water to demonstrate that the O-ring lost its resilience at low temperature.Open the full entry and his service on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.⁠[21]

On July 30 and August 3, 2020, David Zierler of the American Institute of Physics recorded an oral history with him, covering topics including his PCAST work with John Holdren and his assumption of APS leadership amid Covid and racial strife.⁠[6]

On August 19, 2021, the American Institute of Physics named him, then APS president, winner of the 2021 Andrew Gemant Award for instilling a humanistic love of physics in generations of students, championing science policy and the history of physics, and communicating the wonders of the field.⁠[4]

On July 1, 2022, he rejoined the University of Maryland in the Clark Leadership Chair in Science, with a joint appointment in physics and the School of Public Policy and the titles of Distinguished University Professor and Regents Professor.⁠[7]

On January 18, 2023, he spoke to the University of Maryland Retired Faculty Association on What I Saw at the Equity, Excellence, and STEM Interface.⁠[22]

On February 11, 2025, he gave the public lecture Adventures of a Mathematician/Theoretical Physicist: from the Wrong Side of the Tracks at Imperial College London, a personal retrospective on the successes and failures of supersymmetry and on a quest that led him into barely tamed regions of mathematics.⁠[23]

As of October 2026 his website lists him as John S. Toll Professor of Physics, holder of the Clark Leadership Chair in Science, Distinguished University Professor and professor in physics and the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.⁠[15]

Personal website: Public link: https://sjgatesjr.umd.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[15]

X: Public account: https://x.com/dr_jimgates (opens in a new window)⁠[8]

University of Maryland, College Park: Official website: https://umd.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[16]

Brown University: Official website: https://www.brown.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[20]

Howard University: Official website: https://howard.edu/ (opens in a new window)⁠[8]