In loving memory of Eugene A. Rosa

In memoriam of Eugene A. Rosa, an early member and key driver of the MAHB -we miss his leadership and wisdom greatly.

Eugene A. Rosa, a pioneer in the environmental social sciences, died of February 21 at age 71.  Gene was committed to linking the leading edge of the social sciences to the ecological and earth systems sciences.  His work was truly interdisciplinary and was influential among scholars spanning the social, ecological and physical sciences.  He was an enthusiastic supporter of MAHB and an energetic member of the MAHB Steering Committee.

Gene’s career was marked by innovative research that opened up new fields of inquiry.  While still in graduate school at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, Gene and his major professor, Allan Mazur published one of the first papers to demonstrate that for the industrial economies, energy consumption was decoupled from quality of life.  Their analysis spawned further analysis and started to shift our understanding of energy consumption in contemporary societies.

His lifelong interest in energy technology, and nuclear power in particular, led to an influential series of papers and edited books that helped found a social science of nuclear energy.  This also led to his early engagement in the sociology of risk, where he made immense and wide-ranging contributions.  His cross-cultural comparisons of risk perceptions have been cited as an exemplar of comparative research methods.  Gene made major theoretical contributions to our conceptualization of risk in Risk, Uncertainty and Rational Action (Earthscan, 2001) and The Risk Society (Temple, 2013).  He engaged in risk debates at every level, from his noted arguments about the epistemology and ontology of risk, to his organizing a distinguished group of researchers to critique the logic underpinning nuclear waste policy in the U.S. 

For the last two decades Gene has been a leader of the structural human ecology research program, an effort intended to bridge between the social and ecological sciences in the analysis of human drivers of environmental change.  With collaborators Richard York and Thomas Dietz, Gene established an analytical logic that evaluated the contribution of population, affluence, technology, institutions, culture and other factors in shaping environmental stress.  This was germinal in advancing  a new macro-sociology of the environment.  Gene’s work in structural human ecology has been published in journals across the social and ecological sciences.  His publications in this area have won awards from the American Sociological Association and the Society for Human Ecology, the latter for his book Human Footprints on the Global Environment: Threats to Sustainability (MIT  Press, 2010).

In addition to his scholarship, Gene was an accomplished artist and was very proud of his appointment as an Affiliated Professor of Fine Arts at Washington State University.  His sculptures, which he described as Ecolage, have appeared regularly in the annual Faculty of Fine Arts Exhibition and was the subject of a solo exhibition at Washington State.  Gene was also an avid collector—he had converted the top floor of his home in Moscow, Idaho into a gallery for his collection of contemporary art.

It is not surprising that so accomplished a scholar won many accolades.  He was the Edward R Meyer Distinguished Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy in the Thomas S. Foley Institute of Public Policy and Public Service at Washington State,  where he was also the Boeing Distinguished Professor of Environmental Sociology and Regent’s Professor.  He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He was one of only two people to twice win the Outstanding Publication Award of the Section on Environment and Technology of the American Sociological Association.  (The other two time winner is his student, Richard York.)

Gene was an extraordinary friend and colleague.  Whether it was new ideas for research, sage advice about professional life and ethics, or his gourmet cooking and incredible collection of wines, his generosity was unfailing.  Every conversation with Gene would sparkle with new ideas and with his unflagging good humor. 

Coming from a working class family in the Finger Lakes/ Lake Erie region of New York, he was always had a sense of wonder at the social and intellectual journey he was on.  And he was proud of his family and heritage.  He established the Luigi Gastaldo and Flora Brevette Rosa endowment, named for his parents, at the WSU Museum of Art to fund transportation expenses to the museum for children from the region who might otherwise not experience an art museum.