October 29, 2004 for immediate release

UNBC Professor Alex Michalos has received the most prestigious award in Canada for outstanding research in the social sciences. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's (SSHRC) Gold Medal for Achievement was presented to Dr Michalos last night during a gala banquet in Ottawa.

Alex Michalos is a world leader in quality of life studies. When US soldiers and their families faced escalating rates of depression and stress, the Pentagon called on Dr Michalos to help evaluate and address the problem. When apartheid ended in South Africa, the new government turned to him to help measure and improve its citizens' quality of life. Thirty years ago, he founded - and still edits - Social Indicators Research, and academic journal that has published more than 1000 articles on quality of life. Dr Michalos himself has published 22 books and, in 1985, surveyed 18,000 students in 39 countries - the biggest quality of life study ever conducted on students. He is also a Past President of the Royal Society of Canada's Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences.

"Having a scholar of Alex's status has been great for UNBC," says Howard Brunt, UNBC Vice-President Academic. "He has been a terrific mentor for younger faculty and even though he is now retired from teaching, he continues to engage in research that is very relevant to Prince George and other northern communities." Through UNBC's Institute for Social Research and Evaluation, Dr Michalos has conducted local surveys of crime, the arts, seniors' issues, municipal government, health, culture and ethnicity, and public services, as well as gauging trends in local quality of life.

Dr Michalos is the second person to receive the SSHRC Gold Medal for Achievement. The first recipient was renowned Canadian political theorist Charles Taylor.

For more information about Alex Michalos, see the article on him that appeared in the University's Update magazine. Click here.