Milbrath Gets Lifetime Achievement Award From American Political Science Association

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Lester Milbrath of Williamsville, professor emeritus in the University at Buffalo departments of Political Science and Sociology, and a noted environmental futurist, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association (APSA), one of the highest honors bestowed by his professional colleagues.

The award was presented, said an APSA spokesperson, in recognition of Milbrath’s “distinguished lifetime achievement in scholarship, teaching and advancement of the field of ecological and transformational politics.”

He was nominated for the award by APSA’s Organized Section on Ecological and Transformational Politics, which represents an area of study and research in which Milbrath has established an international reputation as a scholar and activist. He has worked tirelessly to increase public awareness of environmental issues by publicly exposing threats to the environment produced by perpetual economic growth, toxic-waste production and the depletion or misuse of natural resources.

Milbrath is involved in several organizations working to shape policy for the Great Lakes and, in a recent project, developed indicators for stewardship of the lakes.

After joining the UB political science faculty in 1966, Milbrath became a professor in the Department of Sociology as well, and headed the university’s interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Center from 1976 until his retirement in 1987.

He currently directs the UB Research Program in Environment and Society, which focuses on the issues of the sustainability of future societies, environmental beliefs and values, public policy, political beliefs, social measurement and social change.

Milbrath is a fellow of the Rockefeller Institute of Government and Political Affairs and the Institute for Human Ecology. He is the founding chair of HOLIS, the Society for a Sustainable Future. He is widely published in his field, having produced numerous articles in refereed journals, conference papers, book chapters, environmental reports and six books, most recently, “Learning to Think Environmentally: While There’s Still Time” (1995, SUNY Press).