Gerhard Lenski

Gerhard Lenski

Gerhard Emmanuel Lenski (born August 13, 1924 in Washington, DC) is an American sociologist known for contributions to the sociology of religion, social inequality, and ecological-evolutionary theory. He served as a cryptographer with the 8th Air Force in England in World War II, attended Yale University where he received a BA degree in 1947 and PhD in 1950. He is now Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he once served as chair of the Department of Sociology, 1969–72, and chair of the Division of Social Sciences, 1976-78. He was awarded a Pre-doctoral Fellowship by the Social Science Research Council, 1949–50, and later a Senior Faculty Fellowship, 1961–62; a Guggenheim Fellowship, 1972–73; and IREX Senior Faculty Exchange Fellowships, for Poland, 1978, and Hungary, 1988. He served as Vice President of the American Sociological Association, 1969–70, and was nominee for President in 1972. He was also President of the Southern Sociological Society, 1977–78 and elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1976. In 2002, he was awarded the Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award by the American Sociological Association. He married Jean Cappelmann in 1948, who died in 1994, and married Ann Blalock in 1996. His children include Jean, Robert, Katherine, and Richard, and step-children, Susan, Kathleen, and James.