Robert H. Binstock (December 6, 1935–November 22, 2011) has died at age 75 in Cleveland, Ohio. He is survived by his wife, Martha Binstock, and daughter Jennifer Binstock.

Dr. Binstock, a prominent gerontologist and professor of Aging, Health and Society at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, held primary appointments in the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics in the School of Medicine and in the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, where he also served as faculty associate in the University Center on Aging and Health. His secondary appointments were in the bioethics, medicine, political science and sociology departments. Binstock received his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in political science from Harvard University.

A former president of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), Binstock served as director of a White House Task Force on Older Americans, and as chairman and member of a number of advisory panels to the federal, state and local governments and foundations. He was a former chair of the Gerontological Health Section of the American Public Health Association, and a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on an Aging Society.

Dr. Binstock was a prolific author, publishing more than 300 articles, book chapters, monographs and books, the majority of them discussing politics and policies affecting aging. His numerous books includeAging Nation: The Economics and Politics of Growing Older in America (2008), and multiple editions of theHandbook of Aging and the Social Sciences.

He was esteemed in his field, receiving GSA’s 2011 M. Powell Lawton Award, the 2010 Distinguished Professor Award from the UCLA Academic Geriatric Resource Center and Case Western’s 2010 Frank and Dorothy Humel Hovorka Prize, honoring his accomplishments as a teacher, a researcher and an advocate in the fields of gerontology and geriatrics. His other awards include the Kent Award; the Brookdale Award; the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Key Award from the American Public Health Association’s Gerontological Health Section; the American Society on Aging (ASA) Award (1994); the ASA Hall of Fame Award (2006); and the Ollie A. Randall Award from the National Council on Aging.

A longtime supporter of ASA, Dr. Binstock gave generously of his time and expertise to ASA’s publications and endeavors, serving for many years on the Aging Today Editorial Advisory Board, and contributing numerous articles both to Aging Today and to Generations, the ASA quarterly journal.