Claude Emerson Welch Jr., State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo (UB) Professor of Political Science and SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science, was born on 12 June 1939 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dr. Claude E. Welch, Sr., and Phyllis Paton Welch. The younger Welch “had the values of hard work and respect for others instilled him from an early age.” His father worked his way through Harvard Medical School and served as a front-line surgeon in World War II. In his medical career, he became “a fixture at Massachusetts General Hospital for more than 40 years, was an innovative surgeon, a tireless worker, prolific researcher and an advocate of building strong ties with his patients, themes that would come to be synonymous with his…son.”