Pulitzer Prize-Winning Gerontologist Robert Butler Passes Away

Dr. Robert Butler, a Pulitzer prize-winning gerontologist, has passed away at the age of 83. He worked steadily until just three days before dying of acute leukemia.

Dr. Butler coined the term "ageism," which is used to describe discrimination against the elderly. He was the founding director of the National Institute on Aging and also helped launch and lead the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, the Alzheimer's Disease Association and the International Longevity Center.

According to Dan Perry, the leader of the Alliance for Aging Research, "Bob was certainly the person, more than any other single individual, who helped create the modern notion that aging is a time of choice, of opportunity, of growth. He was the father of modern gerontology."

Dr. Butler's book Why Survive? Being Old In America was awarded the Pulitzer prize for general nonfiction in 1976.

To read a collection of media tributes to Dr. Butler, click here.