She grew up enjoying the incredible winters of Batavia N.Y., a small town near Buffalo, and moved a bit further south to pursue an undergraduate degree in physics at the College of William and Mary. After receiving her Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics from Case Western Reserve University in 1990, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University before coming to the University of Chicago in 1992. She spent seven years at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, initially as Director of Astronomy and then as Vice President for Science and Education.
More information about her scientific writing and work on women in physics can be found on her University of Chicago homepage.
Gates and her husband have three wonderful children, and live in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.
Whenever possible she spends time with family and friends in the mountains of Colorado.
Buckskin Pass September 2008
