Gary R. Kates (born November 9, 1952) is an American historian who specializes in the European Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
He is an emeritus professor of history at Pomona College in Claremont, California, having previously held the H. Russell Smith Foundation chair.
[3] His interest in academic administration was sparked by a first-year seminar on the politics of the college he took, taught by then-president Bob Atwell.
[3] He published a book on the Chevalier d'Éon, an 18th-century French diplomat who grew up as a man but subsequently lived as a woman,[7][6][8] and became Trinity's interim dean of arts and humanities.
[3] When he stepped down as dean in 2009, headhunters approached him seeking to make him a college president, but he turned them down, preferring to return to teaching history at Pomona full-time.