Sylvester James Gates, Jr. is an American theoretical physicist working as the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland. He loves the "super" aspects of physics: supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. To make these "super" notions more lucid for general public, he created a DVD series for the lifelong-learning centric The Teaching Company called Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality. Born in 1950, Gates obtained both his bachelor's and doctor's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.