Media Advisory: Star of PBS Specials Will Visit UB

S. James Gates Jr., Ph.D., a leading African-American physicist, PBS star and fervent popularizer of science will give a lecture on "The DNA of Reality and its Genome" at 4:30 p.m. today (Friday, April 3, 2009) in 112 Norton Hall on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. The lecture will be free and open to the public.

Gates is John S. Toll Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and is familiar to audiences of such popular PBS specials as "The Elegant Universe," "Breakthrough: The Changing Face of Science in America" and "A Science Odyssey."

Gates' lecture is the Department of Physics' annual Rustgi lecture and coincides with the International Year of Astronomy's worldwide event called "100 Hours of Astronomy" being held April 2-5. Activities open to the public at UB include live Webcasts from the world's major telescopes.

Press arrangements: Ellen Goldbaum in the UB Office of University Communications at 645-5000 ext. 1415, or Bernard Weinstein, UB professor of physics, on-site.